On a random Tuesday afternoon, my mom’s name lit up my phone at exactly the time she should’ve been teaching.

I almost ignored it.

Then it went to voicemail.

A second later, a text appeared.

He called. Your father. Can you come over?

My stomach dropped.

I left my groceries on the passenger seat and drove across town without even locking the car. By the time I walked into the kitchen, half my siblings were pretending not to eavesdrop from the hallway.

Mom sat at the table, her phone face-down in front of her like it might explode. Her eyes were red, but her voice was steady.

“He wants to come home.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

“Home?” I repeated. “Like this home?”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “The choir girl is gone. He says he’s made mistakes. He says he misses us.”

I pulled out a chair and sat across from her.

“Mom. He walked out when you were eight months pregnant with Hannah,” I said. “He didn’t ‘make mistakes.’ He detonated our lives.”

She twisted a dish towel in her hands. “I believe people deserve forgiveness, Mia.”

“Forgiveness,” I said carefully, “isn’t the same thing as moving him back in.”

On the wall behind her were ten school pictures in mismatched frames. Every “blessing” he used to brag about from the pulpit before he disappeared.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

I picked up her phone and stared at his missed call.