They sat in silence for a few minutes. Tim the bartender asked if they wanted a refill, and they both said no.

There was a perfectly symmetrical H carved into the table, and Josh traced it with his forefinger. A master carver, with the seraph base perfectly even. Well done.

“Why don’t you stop?” he asked his father.

“Stop what?”

“Feeling guilty.” He dragged his gaze away from the H and looked at his father’s face. “I don’t say this to be unkind, but we were probably better off without you.”

Chris gave a pained nod.

“It seems like you’re a better man now than you were then.”

His father bowed his head. “I appreciate that more than I can say,” he whispered.

Josh looked at him. Weird, to think that half of his DNA came from this stranger. Then he stuck out his hand. “I forgive you.”

His father’s mouth opened slightly. He took Joshua’s hand and gripped it tightly. Josh squeezed back, and they stayed that way for a long minute before Josh withdrew.

“Do you . . . do you want to meet my family?” Chris asked. “Your . . . siblings?”

“Oh, God, no. I don’t see a reason to put this on them.”

He couldn’t tell if his father was relieved or disappointed. “Okay. Um . . . would you like to see pictures?”

“Uh . . . sure.” Huh. They had that in common, that hesitation of speech when they were unsure how to answer.

His father pulled out his phone, turned it back on and tapped the screen, then handed it over. “That’s at Christmas last year,” he said.

Josh looked at the screen—three kids, the girls in red dresses, the boy, tall and gangly, wearing a blue crewneck sweater. The older girl—Ransom—looked cheeky, and Josh felt a faint smile at the idea. He had a cheeky half sister who looked like him. Last week, he hadn’t known that.

“They look happy,” he said, handing the phone back.

“Thank you,” Chris whispered.

“What kind of things do you do together?” he asked.

“Oh, we, uh . . . well, we all like games and movies, so once a week, we have family night. And we go bowling sometimes. Ransom and Sawyer love baseball, so we go to a Cubs game once a year or so. Um . . . we do yard work together. Sometimes we go to the lake. We, um . . . we have a place up north. In Wisconsin.”

“That sounds nice.”

More tears fell from his father’s eyes. Well, Josh hadn’t inherited that trait. He was not a weeper. Sometimes, he wished he were. “You don’t have to tell them about me,” he said.

“I . . . I might.”

“That’s up to you. I don’t plan on visiting you again, Chris. I don’t need a father. I think it’s too late for us to be anything to each other.”