For a moment, neither of us said anything.
Milo offered him a crayon.
My father blinked. “Thank you.”
“It’s green,” Milo said.
“So it is.”
I waited.
Finally, my father placed the crayon beside his plate and looked at me.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
I almost laughed, but there was no humor in me.
“You didn’t ask.”
He winced. “That’s fair.”
A string of fairy lights glimmered along the far windows, reflecting against the dark Vermont countryside outside.
“I suppose we let Nicholas take up a lot of space,” he said.
“You suppose?”
He looked down. “Your mother and I thought he needed more pushing. More attention. You always seemed self-sufficient.”
“That’s what children become when no one comes to check.”
The sentence left me before I could soften it.
My father closed his eyes briefly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
It was not a grand apology. It did not fix years of being overlooked. But it was the first time he had said those words to me without adding an explanation immediately afterward.
So I let myself hear them.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded, his eyes damp but steady. “When did you start working with Stewart?”
“Three years ago.”
“And you didn’t tell us?”
“I tried to tell Mom once that my writing was becoming more serious. She asked if it came with health insurance, then changed the subject to Nicholas’s promotion.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“That sounds like her.”
“It sounds like all of us.”
That hurt him. I could see it. But he did not argue.
From the dance floor, Nicholas watched us. His expression was impossible to read.
My father followed my gaze.
“He shouldn’t have seated you back here.”
“No.”