I locked it in the glove compartment.

When we reached Claire’s house, she opened the door wearing gardening gloves.

She had Ben’s eyes and the same stubborn expression.

“You should have called,” she said coldly.

Ben almost retreated.

I stood beside him and whispered Dad’s instruction.

“Tell her why she matters.”

Part 3: One Thursday Call

Ben handed Claire the letter and a box of cinnamon rolls.

“I spent years protecting my pride,” he said. “I waited for you to return because admitting I hurt you would mean admitting I was wrong.”

He swallowed.

“I was wrong. More importantly, I made you feel as though you did not matter.”

Claire did not hug him.

She did not forgive him.

For several seconds, she appeared ready to close the door.

Then she opened the box and smelled the cinnamon rolls.

“They may be terrible,” Ben admitted. “His father refused to finish one.”

Claire looked at me.

“Your dad helped him do this?”

I nodded.

“That makes sense,” she said. “This old badger would never apologise on his own.”

She opened the gate.

We talked on the porch for nearly two hours.

Ben told her about the library, the bakery, the failed recordings and the afternoons spent rewriting letters in Dad’s kitchen.

I told her about my daily phone calls with Dad, his awful jokes and the empty chair waiting in his house.

Talking about him softened my grief.

Claire eventually brought out a small wooden box filled with unsigned postcards she had received over the previous months.

One said:

Your father remembers more than he knows how to say.

Another read:

He still makes cinnamon rolls badly.

A third said:

Pride takes its toll. I think he is growing tired of it.

Ben stared at them in disbelief.

He had not sent them.

Dad had.

He had been preparing both sides of the reconciliation.