New information had not come to light.
Old truth had been ignored.
But I took the small win.
At noon on Sunday, Aaron Reed knocked on my door.
I was still in my slippers.
He stood on my porch holding a paper plate covered in foil.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“You’re not.”
He looked exhausted.
The kind of exhausted that comes from parenting through fear.
“Kinsley made brownies.”
I looked at the plate.
“She did?”
“She said they’re not for you.”
I blinked.
He almost smiled.
“She said they’re for the bus.”
“That sounds about right.”
He handed them to me.
Then his face grew serious.
“I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
I let him speak.
“Yesterday I was angry. And scared. And I took some of that out on you.”
“You’re her father.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
