“Yes,” Walter said. He didn’t defend it. “Yes. I did.”
“Why now? Because a child made you feel guilty?”
“Yes,” Walter said again. “Exactly that. I’m not going to pretend I’m brave. An eight-year-old was braver than me, and it broke something loose that should have broken nine years ago. I don’t deserve to be forgiven today. I’m not asking to be. I’m asking to start being useful, which is the only apology I have that’s worth anything.”
He held out the lunchbox.
“This is Lucy’s. It always should have been. Whatever you decide about me — and you get to decide everything about me — this is hers. No conditions.”
Rachel looked at the box.
Then at Lucy, who was reaching, delighted, toward the shiny metal.
And Lucy — who her great-grandmother-in-law had once said “doesn’t even understand birthdays,” who Carol had dismissed as unable to know kindness — Lucy looked at the crying old man in the doorway, and she did the thing she does to everyone she decides she likes.
