“Yeah, you did. It’s fine.”
“No,” my dad said. “I was there. I was fifteen minutes early, in fact. I parked in that big driveway out front, and I waited until four thirty—and when you never showed up, I got out and started looking for you. I went through every classroom. I asked the cleaning staff. I combed the entire playground. In the rain. I was about to call the police when your mom called me home.”
“You were out front?” I said. “The whole time?”
My dad nodded.
“But car pool,” I explained, realizing he was getting this detail a bit late, “was on the back driveway. Near the gyms.”
“Guess I missed that memo.”
“Did you tell Mom? That you were there—that you hadn’t forgotten?”
“You know, I’m not sure. The whole house was in chaos by the time I got back—and then you got so sick.”
“You didn’t tell her.”
“I didn’tnottell her. Not on purpose. We were just—a little busy.”
“Dad!” I said. “She’s been mad at you about that fortwo decades.”
“She has?”
“We all have! We developed a whole theory around it—that you abandoning me that day is the seed of all my intimacy issues.”
My dad looked affronted. “But Ididn’tabandon you.”
“Well—it would have been nice if you’d mentioned that to literally anybody.”
My dad was taking it all in. “Doyou have intimacy issues?”
I burst out with a “Ha!” Then I added, “I faked a faint to get out of my own wedding… so. Yeah. Pretty sure I do.”
“I never liked that guy.”
I nodded, likeGood call. Then my dad and I just looked at each other for a minute, taking it all in. How could we all have had it so wrong all this time?
“Dad,” I said after a while. “You have to tell Mom that you came to school that day, okay? She really needs to know that about you.”
“Okay,” he said solemnly. Then he reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’ll tell Mom that about me if you’ll tell Cooper something about you.”
“Tell Cooper what about me?”
My dad made his voice very gentle, like he might be giving me news I hadn’t heard. “That he’s the one who has your key.”
“He does?”
My dad nodded. “Even I can see that.”
My eyes filled up again. “You can?”
“And I’ll bet you something else, sweetheart.”
“What?”
“You’ve got his, too.”
Twenty-Eight
