It had moved through a hospital room, through a frightened young mother, through a hidden letter under a porch, through two tiny fists clutching bread, through the stubborn decision to keep showing up.
Somewhere in the deepening dark, June yawned. Joy pressed closer to his side.
“Daddy?” June murmured.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can we come here every year?”
Mason looked at the porch where the plate of bread rested in the fading light.
“Yes,” he said. “Every year.”
Joy tipped her head back to study him. “Even when we’re big?”
He smiled. “Especially then.”
They stood together until the stars came out over the Blue Ridge, three figures stitched into one shadow on the grass.
And for the first time in many years, Mason Sterling did not feel like a man who had survived loss.
He felt like a father walking home.
THE END
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