I just wanted you to see me once before I left.
Daniel raises his eyes.
Why do you know where the glasses are?
For the first time, Michael was really smiling.
“Because this apartment was your grandmother’s.
I looked to Daniel.
He seemed as surprised as I was.
“My father told me he bought it after I was born.
– No. This is where you and I grew up. The clock by the window was our father’s. Robert kept it.
Then all the strange things from the previous evening made sense.
Michael didn’t look at the house like a man trying to find out something about us.
He looked at her like a man who had returned home.
That morning, Michael didn’t leave.
He stayed for breakfast.
Then at noon.
And in the next few weeks, Daniel started visiting him.
He never called him “Dad.”
At least not at first.
