Three weeks after Danny’s email arrived, so did he. I watched from my upstairs window as he sat in his car in my driveway for thirty-five minutes, gatheringcourage for a conversation that could go either way. When I finally walked outside, he looked smaller somehow—not physically, but in presence. The entitlement that had protected him for years had been stripped away.
“Thank you for not turning me away,” he said, voice carrying uncertainty he’d never shown before. “I know I don’t deserve your time, but I needed to say this in person.”
“I used you for years,” Danny confessed, his hands twisting together. “I treated you like a piggy bank instead of a person. I let Sarahand Richard poison my thinking and convinced myself it was normal because you never complained. The house should have been a moment of gratitude, but I let Richard decide who was welcome at a table you paid for.”
