blame myself.
But now the truth felt strangely simple.
Nobody had caused it.
Nobody needed to carry it.
As Grandma had said,
“It was just his heart.”
—
We spent a week in California.
On our final evening, we sat outside Mom’s house in Oakland.
Grandma kept unfolding the old boarding pass.
Reading the faded pencil message.
Folding it again.
Mom eventually asked,
“Why did you finally decide to go back?”
Grandma touched the little silver wings on her purse.
Then she told us a story I had never heard.
In
