“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology was quiet and unadorned.
It might have been sincere.
It was also far too late to repair what came before it.
“I believe you are sorry,” I said.
“Then give me another chance.”
“Being sorry is not the same as becoming safe.”
His hands lowered.
“What do I have to do?”
“Become honest even when honesty costs you something.”
“Be a father without treating either mother as property.”
“Stop asking women to absorb the consequences of your choices.”
“And will that bring you back?”
“No.”
His expression closed.
“Then what is the point?”
That question told me everything.
He did not understand change unless it purchased a reward.
“The point,” I said, “is that your children will have to live with the man you decide to become.”
I left him standing beneath the hotel lights with our child’s first photograph in his hand.
