Nathan’s four thousand dollars went into a college account, in his name, where it belongs — because his father’s son is not spending his future on his mother’s past.
He and Cole got honest jobs, daytime, legal, the kind sixteen-year-olds are allowed to have, bagging groceries and mowing lawns, and I let them, because a boy who wants to work is a good thing when nobody’s lying about it.
His hands healed. The scars on two knuckles are faint now. I hope they never fully fade, and I’ve never told him that, because I want him to always be able to look down and remember what he was willing to do for the people he loves — and, right beside it, what I taught him afterward about not doing it alone.
Dan’s porch is still ours.
We sit on it now, Nathan and I, most evenings. His height marks are still on the kitchen doorframe, and last month I added a new one at the top, higher than Dan’s last, because my son grew two months and a lifetime this fall.
