Then he went and sat in his chair. Marcus gave him a day. Then he came over the following morning on and they drank coffee on the back porch despite the December cold, the same way they'd been doing it since October. And Robert wrapped both hands around his mug, and they looked at the fence they'd fixed together and said nothing for a while. "Olivia wants to come for Christmas," Robert said eventually.
"Good," Marcus said. "She wants to do it here at my house. " He paused. She wants to cook. Even better, she mentioned inviting you and the girls. Well be there, Marcus said.
Robert nodded. He drank his coffee. The morning was cold and still. I haven't had Christmas, Robert said quietly. Not as a complaint, just as a fact he was sitting with.
Not the real kind. Not with people in the house, not in. He stopped. Calculated. 11 years.
Marcus said nothing. Just let that sit. She used to hang stockings, Robert said. Even the years she was angry at me. She'd still send a card with a stocking drawing on it.
Every year I kept everyone. He paused. I have them in a box in the closet. 23 cards. Marcus looked at the old man.
23 years of cards from a daughter who was supposed to be done with you. Yeah. Robert said. That's not someone who gave up on you. Robert.
The old man was quiet for a moment. No, he said. I understand that now. He reached over and set his coffee cup on the porch railing. I wasted a lot of years believing I'd already lost everything worth keeping, he said, convinced myself it was too late, that the damage was permanent.
He looked at Marcus directly. You know what nobody tells you about permanent damage? Marcus waited. It's almost never actually permanent, Robert said. That's the lie you tell yourself to make it easier to stop trying.
Marcus held that for a moment. He thought about the two years after his wife left. The way he'd started to believe slowly, quietly, without even noticing it happening that the life he was living was simply the life now. That the version of himself who had felt whole was gone and wouldn't come back. That the best he could offer his daughters was a father who showed up even when he was running on nothing.