“And now you show up? Today? On her birthday?”
“She looked so much like Luke.”
“Look, Daphne, I am here because Luke asked me to be.” He held up the wrapped gift. “Not just to deliver a card. To actually be here. I’ve spent years being a coward. I don’t want to spend another day doing that.”
I stared at him. The man who’d walked out, leaving me with a five-year-old and an 18-year-old. The man who’d let our son carry a family on his back.
“I’ve spent years being a coward.”
“You don’t get to just walk back in, Victor.”
“I know.”
“Hannah doesn’t owe you anything.”
“I know that, too.”
“And Luke isn’t here to hold your hand through this.”
“That’s why I came,” he whispered. “Because he couldn’t be.”
“Hannah doesn’t owe you anything.”
I closed my eyes. I could feel Luke’s presence. My son had planned this. He’d reached across 13 years to put his father on my porch.
