“Come in.”
She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling fan.
I sat beside her.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
“Good. Because I don’t.”
I waited.
Eventually, she spoke.
“He’s not wrong, Mom.”
“About what?”
“He isn’t my biological dad.”
I reached for her hand.
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t family.”
She stared at the ceiling.
“I know. I just thought it didn’t matter anymore.”
Her voice became quieter.
“Apparently it matters to him.”
I felt my heart tighten.
“Kaylee, who do you actually want to walk with you Thursday?”
She considered the question.
Then she turned toward me.
“Could Grandpa do it?”
My father, Duane Ostrem, was seventy-nine years old.
He had spent more than fifty years running a dairy farm outside town. After my mother passed away, he sold the herd but remained on the property.
