CHAPTER 24: THE FIRST FACE-TO-FACE
Laurel called me on Sunday afternoon.
Her number appeared as UNKNOWN because she had blocked it for years.
I almost let the phone ring out.
Then I answered and heard my sister’s voice.
“Hi, Danny,” she said.
Nobody had called me that since I was nineteen.
I gripped the edge of the counter.
“Hi, Laurel.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
She asked whether I still drank coffee with too much sugar.
I said I did.
She laughed once, and the sound made my chest ache.
We talked about ordinary things first.
She told me about the town where she lived,
the patients she counseled, and the cat that had wandered into her backyard and stayed.
I told her about the roof leak and the old truck I had been trying to restore.
Then I asked the question I had carried for more than two decades.
“Did you ever want to come home?”
“Every year,” she whispered.
“Then why didn’t you?”
She told me she had feared our father would use Owen’s location to demand a reunion.
Later, she feared I would ask her to choose between her new life and our old family.
“I kept waiting until I could explain everything without hurting anyone,
” she said.
“There was never going to be a perfect time.”
I admitted I had said cruel things the night she left.
She said those words mattered less than the years neither of us had made a call.
We cried without apologizing for the sound.
At the end, she asked whether she could visit the house when the legal matters were quieter.
“You don’t need permission to see me,” I answered.
“You never did.”
