Then he turned back to them.
“Well? How did you feel?”
Ethan stared at the floor.
“Sad.”
“Why?”
“Because you took the caramel bar I showed you.”
Richard nodded slowly.
Owen spoke next.
“And you told Ethan he was ungrateful.”
Richard opened his mouth, then closed it.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Ethan looked up.
“Grandpa, if we didn’t have candy, would you still want to take us?”
Richard froze.
I watched the question settle over him.
He looked toward Michael, who was standing beside the doorway.
For the first time that evening, Richard seemed to understand what his grandsons were asking.
“Of course I would,” he said.
Owen frowned.
“Then why did you say we had to pay you?”
Richard sat in the chair opposite them.
“I shouldn’t have.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“When I was a boy, my own father used to tell me that nothing in life was free. If he drove me somewhere, I had to do extra chores afterward. I suppose I got used to thinking that was how things worked.”
