I looked over at Pop, his mouth hanging open, that gold tooth catching the starlight. Even though the night was lovely and the moon was high and bright and clear and the stars were like burning angels smiling down, something was bothering me, some sad ugly splinter working its way out of my heart.

I guess I might as well be honest about it.

Even though I told Pop I’d forgiven him, I realized it wasn’t so easy as that. You can’t just forgive somebody completely in a moment’s notice and never feel sad about anything they’ve done to you again. That’s just not how things work. The truth was, I was still mad as all heck about the hex he put on me, how Pop didn’t even bother to tell me about why my life was so rotten. I was mad about my blood being gambled away so carelessly, how me and him would both be dead if Mom hadn’t pleaded for our lives. I was mad about every durn bit of it. And I guess I’d stay mad, just a little bit, for a long, long time. I was glad I had my pop back, surely I was, but things had changed, and they had changed for good. Pop was never gonna be my hero again. Instead, he was just my daddy—flawed, arrogant, maybe even a scoundrel. I still loved him though, and I would try my hardest to forgive him. I would keep trying, too, no matter how long it took.

That was just the way of it, wasn’t it? That’s how the world works, how love works. It changes, it grows tougher, it tries to forgive. I don’t know how to do it any better than that.

I rolled over in the grass and patted down the knapsack that I was using for a pillow one more time. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t get to sleep. So I watched the sky lighten and dim, the stars hide themselves behind that bright curtain of blue, and the sunrise spill over the horizon in reds and golds and pinks. It was like the night was a scrap of paper God lit on fire, like the past was this great big book and God was burning it up one page at a time.

I watched the night burn into the morning burn into the day, and I wondered at it all. Then Pop woke up, smiling his gold-tooth smile, and we set out walking again.

We rode into Collardsville on the back of a wagon full of furniture fresh from market. I was sitting on a stool and Pop had a rocking chair all to himself. We felt like kings, we did, like war heroes returning in a victory parade, riding high above all the townspeople welcoming us home, the hot sun beating down on us, laughing and singing songs all the way.

We hopped off when we came to Mom’s street, where the bakery was.

“You ready to do this?” I said to Pop, and he nodded at me, his face all scruffy, his smile forced. I could tell he was pretty nervous to see Mom again.