Mom’s fingers dug into the doorframe. Where she expected peeling paint and empty cupboards, a long table stood covered with a white cloth, set for five, and a crooked banner above it read Welcome Home, Grandma in my stepson’s wobbly crayon. Every wall held framed photographs of her, the ones I had kept even while she shut me out.

Theo slipped his small hand into hers and whispered, “Grandma, we saved your seat.” Her lips trembled. Then a chair scraped in the kitchen. A thin, gray-haired man stood in the archway, leaning on a cane, his eyes the exact blue of mine. My mother’s face lost every drop of color. “Walter?” she breathed. He nodded slowly. The room went utterly silent. “Hello, Vivian. It has been twenty-three years.”