A breeze moved through the leaves.
Harrison took the gold pocket watch from his coat and placed it between them.
“It still runs,” he said.
Julian smiled. “Stubborn little thing.”
“Like its owner.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
They laughed, and the laughter did not erase the past. It joined it, softened it, gave it another ending.
Julian looked at his father. “Do you ever wonder what life would’ve been like if none of this happened?”
“Every day,” Harrison admitted. “Then I remind myself not to build a home in the impossible. We live here. After. And after can still be beautiful.”
Julian nodded. “I’m writing a symphony.”
“About what?”
“Us. Mom. Evan. Arthur. Martha. Even Uncle Graham, though I may need a very stern bassoon for him.”
Harrison laughed.
“What will you call it?”
Julian looked at the bench, then at the sky, then at the man who had once been too proud to listen and had become humble enough to change.
