On a random Tuesday afternoon, my mom\u2019s name lit up my phone at exactly the time she should\u2019ve been teaching.<\/p>\n
I almost ignored it.<\/p>\n
Then it went to voicemail.<\/p>\n
A second later, a text appeared.<\/p>\n
He called. Your father. Can you come over?<\/p>\n
My stomach dropped.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wants to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed. I couldn\u2019t help it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHome?\u201d I repeated. \u201cLike this home?\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded, swallowing hard. \u201cThe choir girl is gone. He says he\u2019s made mistakes. He says he misses us.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled out a chair and sat across from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom. He walked out when you were eight months pregnant with Hannah,\u201d I said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t \u2018make mistakes.\u2019 He detonated our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
She twisted a dish towel in her hands. \u201cI believe people deserve forgiveness, Mia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForgiveness,\u201d I said carefully, \u201cisn\u2019t the same thing as moving him back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the wall behind her were ten school pictures in mismatched frames. Every \u201cblessing\u201d he used to brag about from the pulpit before he disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you tell him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I\u2019d think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I picked up her phone and stared at his missed call.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a random Tuesday afternoon, my mom\u2019s name lit up my phone at exactly the time she should\u2019ve been teaching. I almost ignored it. Then it went… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39572,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39570\/revisions\/39572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedailyglow.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}