When I opened the door that evening, I knew before he spoke that it was him. Edwin looked older, smaller somehow, as if the years had carved pieces out of him. The girls—now women—were out with friends. He asked about them with a voice that shook, eyes scanning the hallway like ghosts might appear at any moment. I let him in, not because he deserved it, but because they deserved the choice I’d never had.

We sat at the kitchen table where I’d once taught his daughters to do homework, his untouched coffee growing cold between us. His apology was halting, messy, and far too late. He spoke of grief, of running, of the cowardice that had followed him into every empty room for fifteen years. I didn’t tell him it was okay. It wasn’t. But I listened, and I told him the truth: that forgiveness, if it ever came, would not be mine to give. It would be theirs—and he would have to earn every fragile inch of it.