Page 177 of His Surrender

His expression changes; the softness disappears. “You think I don’t?”

The question is so quiet that I immediately regret my words.

Dad looks toward the window again. “I spent years waiting for you to come home.”

My anger collapses.

“After your mother died, every time you were ten minutes late from school, I imagined a police car pulling into the driveway. Every time you didn’t answer your phone in college, I wondered whether someone would call to tell me I had lost you too.”

I had no idea. The realization makes me feel ashamed.

“You never said anything.”

“You were a child. then you were a young man, trying to build a life. My fear was mine to manage.”

“How?”

“Badly, at first.” A faint smile crosses his face. “I checked the clock too often. I drove past your school once because you were late getting home.”

I blink. “You never told me that.”

“I was not proud of it.” He takes a sip of coffee. “Eventually, I learned that loving someone means accepting that you cannot guarantee their safety.”

“That sounds simple when you say it.”

“It was the hardest thing I have ever done.”

Our food arrives, but neither of us touches it. The server senses the mood and leaves quickly. Dad folds his napkin once, then sets it beside his untouched plate.

“You know what I remember most about your mother?” He smiles. “The arguments. She was stubborn.”

“I remember,” I say as a small smile creeps up.

“She once refused to speak to me for two days because I’d bought the wrong curtains.”

“She cared about curtains that much?”

“No. She cared that I’d bought them without asking.”

That makes me laugh quietly.

Dad’s smile deepens for a moment before sadness returns around the edges. “I remember burned dinners. Mortgage payments. You getting the flu and vomiting across both of us at three in the morning.”

I cringe. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. It was horrific.”

The warmth fades from his expression, replaced by something deeper. “I remember ordinary life, Dean.” He pauses. “Not just the day she died. For a long time, grief tried to rewrite our marriage into a tragedy. It made that final day feel larger than every day that had come before it.”

He looks directly at me. “But your mother’s life was not defined by the way it ended.”

The restaurant seems to grow quieter around us.

“Our love was not a mistake because I lost her.” Dad’s voice roughens. “If someone had told me on our wedding day exactly how many years we would have, exactly how it would end, and exactly how much it would hurt …”

He stops and swallows. “I still would have married her.”

The words settle heavily in my chest.