Chapter 19

Dad touched my arm and pointed to the sidewalk across the street. “This way?”

“Okay.”

The thing was, we’d never had the kind of relationship where my dad invited me along for walks. My most prominent recollection of my dad was that he worked a lot. We’d see him at dinner on workdays, but not really otherwise, beyond glimpses like his poker games and on weekends when he wasn’t doing other activities he preferred over spending time with my sister and me.

But it occurred to me as I took up space just slightly behind him to his left that perhaps I had been unfair to him. Mom had mentioned he’d taken us to the park when we were young, and maybe there were other things I’d forgotten.

“You were always the quiet one,” Dad spoke up after we’d gotten about a block from Raine’s home.

“Was I?” He’d gained probably twenty pounds since I’d seen him last. Ten years changed everyone, I guessed.

“Sure. Even when you and your sister were born. She cried and cried. But not you.”