Chapter 7
The crib was finished by midnight. We lowered Leo into it, his tiny body looking even smaller against the warm wood. He stirred once, then went back to sleep, making a soft little humming sound.
We stood there for a long time, the three of us, watching him.
Then Richard turned to Lila.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, his voice rough but steady. “More than one. For everything I said. For everything I thought. For making your life so hard when you were already going through hell.”
Lila’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s okay—”
“No,” Richard said, shaking his head. “It’s not okay. None of it is okay. I let my pride destroy my relationship with my son. I made him feel like he had to hide the people he loved, the life he wanted. And because of that, I never got to meet my grandson until three months after he was born. I almost lost all of you because I was too stupid to see what was right in front of me.”
He paused, taking a deep breath.
“Ethan didn’t die because he was reckless,” he said, the words coming out like they were tearing him apart. “He died because of me. I told him if he quit pre-med, if he kept seeing you, I’d disown him. I told him he’d be dead to me. He left the house that night, and I never even tried to call him. I just let him go.”
He looked at Lila, his eyes full of tears.
“He was driving to your place when he crashed, wasn’t he?” he asked. “Not to my house. To yours. To be with you when Leo was born.”
Lila nodded, crying openly now. “He got the call that my water broke. He was so excited. He said he’d be there in ten minutes.”
A sob tore out of Richard. He sank onto the floor, his head in his hands, his whole body shaking.
“I killed him,” he whispered. “My own son. I killed him.”
I sank down beside him, putting my arms around him. He cried into my shoulder, the way he hadn’t cried since the day we buried Ethan. All the pain, all the guilt, all the regret he’d been holding in for months came pouring out.
Lila sat down on the other side of him, putting a hand on his arm.
“Ethan never hated you,” she said softly. “He talked about you all the time. He said you were the smartest, strongest man he knew. He just wanted you to be proud of him. For who he was, not who you wanted him to be.”
Richard looked up at her, his face streaked with tears.
“I was proud of him,” he said. “I was so proud of him. I just never told him. I was so scared he’d fail, that he’d get hurt, that I forgot to tell him I loved him no matter what.”
That night, we sat on the nursery floor for hours, talking. Richard told us about Ethan as a baby, how he’d held him for the first time and promised he’d always protect him. Lila told us about Ethan as a man, how he’d stay up all night painting just to make her smile, how he’d sing off-key to Leo’s belly every night before bed.
We laughed. We cried. We told every story we had about the boy we all loved.
And for the first time, it felt like we were all on the same side.
The next morning, Richard made breakfast. Pancakes, shaped like dinosaurs—Ethan’s favorite. He set a plate down in front of Lila, then another in front of me. He even made a tiny plate of pancake crumbs for Leo, even though he was too little to eat them.
“Today,” he said, sitting down at the head of the table, “we’re going to the cemetery. All of us. I’ve got something I need to say to Ethan.”
We drove out there an hour later, the sun shining for the first time in weeks. Richard carried Leo, holding him high on his shoulders, the baby giggling and pulling at his hair. Lila carried a bouquet of daisies. I carried Ethan’s old sketchbook, the one full of drawings of her and Leo.
We stood in front of his headstone, the grass soft under our feet.
Richard stepped forward, shifting Leo into his arms so he could face the stone.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, his voice rough. “I know I haven’t been here in a while. I was… I was ashamed. Of how I treated you. Of all the things I never said.”
He paused, looking down at Leo, who was patting his cheek.
“I met your son,” he said, smiling through his tears. “He’s perfect, Ethan. He’s got your eyes. Your dimple. Your terrible taste in music—Lila says he only stops crying when we play that terrible folk band you loved.”
He laughed, a wet, shaky sound.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the dad you deserved. But I promise you… I’m gonna be the best grandpa Leo could ever ask for. I’m gonna love him, and support him, and tell him every single day how proud I am of him. No matter what he wants to do with his life. I’m gonna make sure he never feels the way you did.”
He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the headstone.
“I love you, son,” he whispered. “I always have.”
We stood there for a long time, each of us saying our own goodbyes. Lila left the daisies. I left the sketchbook, open to the drawing of Ethan holding Leo, the words My whole world written at the bottom.
As we walked back to the car, Leo asleep in Richard’s arms, I felt a hand slip into mine.
I looked over. It was Lila, smiling at me through her tears.
“Thank you,” she said. “For giving me a family.”
May you like
I squeezed her hand.
“Thank you,” I said. “For giving us our son back.”
