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I know I love him.

I know he can take care of me.

I know that the life I have already experienced with him is the one I want.

But, most importantly, if I’m wrong about everything, it doesn’t matter. I am an adult, and my parents’ wants are no longer worth more than mine.

The facts are simple…if harsh.

So I fear my father’s unstoppable force may collide with the immovable object and catch us all up in a resulting devastation.

Breaking the silence, my mother frees a breath and repeats, “I really shouldn’t be doing this right now. I think I was just…surprised.” Her attention lifts, taking in the chaos surrounding us as Christmas takes over every corner of the main rooms. In the hearth, a roaring fire crackles, casting the Winslow family in a warm light. From the speakers, “Deck the Halls” rings clear. Love settles, so apparent, in the scene swirling all around, and my mother seems defeated in the face of it. “This is a lovely home. Small…but immaculate and well taken care of. I can picture you here. I can picture you happy here. And when I thought that, it made me want to hope you could be, but it also made me wonder why you’d want something so different from what you’ve known.”

It hurts to swallow. “So you hoped maybe my letter would explain?”

She nods.

“Did it?”

Her head shakes. “Not completely. At first, I worried I’d be reading a list of my sins. Some clinical dissection of all the places I went wrong and why now you want nothing to do with the lifestyle your father and I built for you.” Her fingertips skim the lines on the pages in her lap. “This is nothing like that. You’re not here because you’re running from us. You’re not here because you’re hurt. You’re not here because I was a terrible mother or because your father has been too hard on you.” Her gaze shifts toward Wynnter as he stands in the kitchen, refilling his grandmother’s mug of soup at the main pot on the stove. Sweet as ever, he brings it to where she’s sitting on the other sofa, then he glances my way, catches my mother’s eyes, and returns his look to me, brow lifted. I smile as my mother says, “You’d be anywhere he is. And he’d be anywhere you are. And if this life didn’t suit you, he’d change it, wouldn’t he?”

Holding Wynnter’s warm, questioning gaze, I say, “He told me that he was planning to build me a castle, but I said I didn’t want one, so now he’s just looking into adding on a library annex come spring.”

A frail laugh exits my mother’s lips. “I am grateful that even with all our mistakes, you have managed to learn what love looks like.”

I bury my nose in my mug, letting the steam dampen my face to distract me from the way my chest won’t stop clenching. “I don’t imagine I’ve been easy to parent.”

“You have certainly not been difficult.” Tender, she places her hand on my leg. “Most of the time, anyway.”

I giggle. “I couldn’t make it too easy for you. Where’s the fun in that?”

“I don’t know.” Squeezing my knee, she lifts my face from the steamy curtain and meets my eyes. “Thank you for giving us a world of chances, Devina. We are going to get through this, and we are going to grow stronger the closer we come to understanding each other. I promise.”

My heart fractures at the mere possibility of that. I whisper, “Thank you for loving me enough to listen.”

Her smile, though tight on her treated skin, reminds me of the mother I knew growing up. So gentle and strong. So understanding and kind. I wanted to be like her, once, back before I knew what it meant to be like myself.

Many children grow up in worlds where the last thing they want to become is their parents, but I don’t think I’d mind that, if it were the case. My parents might be a lot, and they may be vain and proud and stubborn, but in this moment all I see is how human they are.

And being human isn’t that bad, because humans? Humans change, and they adapt, and they grow. Humans make mistakes. So humans, uniquely, learn to forgive.

When my mother leans in to hug me, I set my mug down on the couch armrest and return her embrace.

◼

“I appreciate that he clearly edited this,” Wynnter mumbles in my ear, snuggled up behind me in our bed.

Trying not to be tense, I let my Wynn’s warmth fuel my courage to read every line my father wrote. His concerns are plentiful. They pry at everything important, from matters of character to matters of lifestyle. He’s broken my entire future down into an assessment of whether or not I’ll be able to handle it if I am making a big mistake.

Which I find beautiful.

Instead of using the opportunity to write an argumentative essay explaining why I’m wrong and should change my mind, he’s outlined all the things I’ll need to consider if I’m wrong and asked me whether or not I’ll be able to stomach a world in which that possibility becomes reality.

His focus isn’t on being right; his focus is on whether or not I will be okay in the aftermath.

It is not the angle I expected at all, and the concept is so awash in love that I’m reading it with blurry eyes.

“Your father really cares about you,” Wynnter says once we reach the final page.