Part 3: What Patricia Knew
Julia flew in from Oregon the following month. We talked about Ethan, remembered her mother, cooked dinner together in the kitchen the way we used to when she was a kid.
It was the best evening I’d had since Patricia died.
Ethan and I only spoke three times that whole winter. Every conversation was hard, but somehow more honest than most of our polite family dinners over the past several years had ever managed to be.
I refused to sell the property. But once he told me the full extent of his debts, I did set up a documented loan to help cover the most urgent ones.
It wasn’t forgiveness.
It was practical love, with boundaries attached to it.
During our second call that winter, Ethan brought up the rope swing out of nowhere. He remembered the summer I built it, how he’d stayed outside until it got dark, coming in every night sunburned and covered in grass stains.
“I forgot what that land actually was,” he admitted quietly. “Somewhere along the way I just turned it into a number in my head.”
“I know.”
“Is the swing still up?”
“It is.”
“Does it still hold?”
“I tied those knots myself. I tie good knots.”
He went quiet for a second.
“Maybe I could come see it in the spring.”
“Maybe in the spring.”
