“Yes.”
“Even when it’s difficult.”
“It will be difficult.”
“I know.”
Then he admitted something I think he had avoided admitting his entire life.
“I’ve spent forty years avoiding difficult conversations with my mother.”
I looked at him.
“That’s probably true.”
One night he asked:
“How did you know waiting would work?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you built all those records.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know to do that?”
“Because records matter.”
“In what way?”
I thought about it.
“A record matters when somebody tells a story that isn’t true.”
He waited.
“And eventually, you need something stronger than another story to show what actually happened.”
“So you always knew you could prove it.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t scared?”
“I was terrified.”
“For eight years?”
“For eight years.”
“Then how were you patient?”
“Fear and patience can exist at the same time.”
He considered that.
Then nodded.
