Ken shook his hand, then pulled him in for a hug. Mitch wasn’t much of a hugger, but you only meet your long-lost brother for the first time once. They squeezed each other tightly, then Mitch pulled away.

“Well, you don’t want to miss your flight,” he said.

Ken cleared his throat, grabbed his bag, and opened the door. “We’ll talk soon.”

“Okay.” Mitch gave his brother a nod. “Soon.”

Ken waved down the hall at Bea and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Mitch moved to the living room and watched through the window as Ken hopped into his rental car and drove away. Mitch hated how he was losing his mother. Hated the helplessness. Hated how dementia could turn a vibrant and flourishing brain into a gray, murky wasteland. And yet God was bringing something good from it all. For all his losing, it looked like he was gaining, too.

“Dad? You okay?”

He turned around. There before him was another significant gain: a grandchild. He’d almost lost Bea once, pushing her away like he did when Caroline died. Then he’d looked at her having to move back home as proof he’d been right about her marrying Jeremy. But what if it was just God’s way of giving him another chance?

A chance he’d almost blown. But she wasn’t gone yet.

“I need to tell you something.”

Bea waited.

“I never should’ve said what I said about you and Jeremy.”

“Dad—”

“I was wrong. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you after your mother died. I got . . . lost.” Mitch pictured Caroline’s face. Her hands. The shape of her legs and the curve of her neck when he brushed her chestnut hair out of the way to kiss it. He hadn’t been ready to say good-bye. “It’s been hard to figure out what to do without her. How to be. But your marrying Jeremy wasn’t a mistake.”

Unshed tears shone in Bea’s eyes. “It was hard for me, too.”

“I know.”

“I thought getting away from here would help—I thought I could move on—but at college I was so alone. I didn’t fit in. Something was always missing. Until I met Jeremy.”

“Is that why you quit school? Because you didn’t fit in?” He wanted to understand. She’d always insisted it wasn’t because of her marriage, but what else could it have been?

“That was part of it.”

He moved closer, wanting to hold her but unsure if he’d ever be able to let go. “What was the other part?”

“I was scared, okay? I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to disappoint you. And there were bad memories there. I was attacked—” She cut herself off and looked away as if she hadn’t meant to say the words. Blood pounded in his temples.