PART 4
My grandson came back from the car then, holding the card he'd made, and stopped when he saw two crying women on the bench.
"Grandma? What's wrong?"
And I looked at Margaret, and she looked at me, and I made a decision my daughter had made for me ten years earlier and I was only now catching up to.
"Sweetheart," I said. "Come here. I need to tell you something. And there's someone I need you to meet."
I sat my grandson down between us, and I did the thing I'd been unable to do his whole life. I answered the question.
"Your dad's name was Michael," I said. "He was nineteen. He loved your mom very much, for one whole summer, and they were so happy. He died in an accident before you were born, before he even knew you were coming. That's why I could never tell you — because I didn't know his name, until today.
