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After a few bites, she let the rest of her soup grow cold as she held her phone and typed a message, which she promptly erased and started over. She was trying to compose something that would hit just the right tone—respectful, above all, but also welcoming and inviting without giving her father any kind of lead-in to berate her for causing this argument simply because she’d decided to live life on her own terms at last.

He was probably also upset that she’d missed church last Sunday. The expectation that she attend every week was certainly there. She had the festival as an excuse, but she wouldn’t have the same excuse this Sunday, and she wasn’t planning to go—not unless he reacted positively to the text she was about to send him. She wasn’t willing to face the disapproval he could throw off whenever he felt justified. She also didn’t want to give him the chance to tell her “I told you so” if he’d heard Kanon was leaving town.

A knock sounded on her front door, which surprised her. Now that the work involved in launching the festival was over and she was by herself when Ari was with Jack, she was quickly coming to realize that she needed to build a more active social life. She’d let her world shrink to only a few people; she needed to make more friends, get out. But she hadn’t made any effort along those lines yet, wasn’t expecting anyone tonight.

Assuming it was Mr. Devlin, checking to see if Ari would like to play with Bubba while he and his wife went to some holiday event or something like that, she was stunned to find her father standing on the stoop when she answered. “Hello,” she said. “I—I was just texting you.”

“About what?” he asked.

“I was…inviting you over to dinner on Christmas.”

He gestured at her house. “Here?”

She nodded.

Christmas lights twinkled on the Devlins’ house behind him, and there were still patches of snow on the grass. His breath misted in the cold night air as he sighed. “Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you.”

Tension tightened Patience’s back and neck muscles. She was certainly open to having a conversation and trying to work things out, but her father never approached her in such a way that she felt she could also state her opinion. He simply insisted that he was right and kept hammering home the reasons until she finally gave in and accepted whatever he was saying, generally because it wasn’t worth continuing to fight.

But she couldn’t turn him away. She was too surprised and curious to do that even if she felt she could. “Sure.”

She backed up to let him in and watched while he walked slowly around the living room. “This place is small, but it looks comfortable.”

Although that statement was a concession, of sorts—coming from him—she wasn’t sure she could trust it to mean that he wouldn’t then go into all the reasons she should move home. “Yes.”

Stopping at the Christmas tree, he reached out to finger one of the candy canes Ari had used to decorate it. “You got a real tree, huh?”

Not one to spend money he could save, he had an artificial tree they put up every year. “Kanon bought it for us.”

“Kanon again,” he said.

The flat tone of his voice made Patience catch her breath. He was obviously getting to something. But when he didn’t speak, she said, “I know you don’t like him. But I do.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” he said. “I just want to protect you, make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“Or make another mistake,” she added.

“Or make another mistake,” he acknowledged.

She studied his face, the harsh lines that made him look unfriendly when he wasn’t smiling. “But this is the thing, Dad—I’d rather make a mistake using my own judgment than do what you tell me to all the time and never really live my life. Does that make sense?”

She thought what she’d said would make him angry all over again. It would’ve made him angry at any other point in her life. But tonight he seemed oddly subdued. Maybe she’d stayed away long enough that he’d had time to consider what life would be like if they didn’t have each other and decided he’d rather compromise a little. She couldn’t imagine what else would’ve prompted this very uncharacteristic visit. But he managed to surprise her again, this time by holding his tongue while seemingly searching for the right words.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You’re right,” he replied.

She felt her jaw drop. “About…”

“You should live your life as you see fit, and I should let you. I don’t think I realized that I was standing in your way until…”

“Until…” she prompted.

“Until Kanon approached me at the festival.”

Patience sank into her chair at the kitchen table. “Kanon approached you? Why? What’d he say?”

“That you were a wonderful daughter, and I should be grateful to have you and trust you enough to let you live your own life.”