Trust came slowly.
That was how it should be.
One Sunday morning, Lucas sat at the kitchen table eating pancakes.
He looked at me.
“He wants to come to my game next Saturday.”
I smiled.
“Do you want him there?”
Lucas nodded.
“Then he should come.”
He looked at his plate.
“He’s still not really my dad-dad.”
“You don’t have to decide what to call him yet.”
Lucas thought about that.
Then he picked up his fork.
“I think I just want to know him first.”
“That sounds like a good place to start.”
He smiled.
I looked around the kitchen.
For ten years, I had believed my daughter’s story ended with a loss.
But perhaps that wasn’t the whole story.
Teagan was gone, and nothing could change that.
What could change was what came next.
Lucas didn’t have to inherit the silence surrounding his childhood.
