“You made this?”
“Yes,” I said. “Every stitch.”
He stood there, uncertain—caught between two lives.
Then slowly, he held the blanket out to me.
Not as proof.
Not as surrender.
But as something shared.
I took it and pressed it to my chest.
And for the first time in twenty-one years…
I let myself grieve out loud.
We talked for hours after that.
Nothing about it was easy. Nothing about it was clean.
But before he left, he handed me a cup of coffee and said, almost awkwardly,
“‘Mom’ might be too much right now… but coffee works.”
And for now…
coffee is enough.
