“I know.”
Nick held up the paper.
“And nobody leaves me outside that door again.”
His voice broke. “Never again.”
An hour later, there was a knock at my motel door.
When I opened it, Nick was standing there with rain in his hair and a piece of paper in his hand. Emma peeked out from behind his leg.
Nick held up the paper.
It was a crayon drawing. A house. A huge sun. Three children. Two grown-ups. And one woman in a blue dress in the middle.
I knelt down carefully.
At the top, in crooked letters, it said WELCOME GRANDMA.
“I should have opened the door the first time,” he said.
I looked at him.
Then Emma stepped around him and said, “I was hiding very quietly and then I saw you leave and I cried a lot.”
I knelt down carefully.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
On the drive back, Nick didn’t crowd the silence.
She threw her arms around my neck.
“You came back,” she said into my shoulder.
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