The journal remained on the coffee table for nearly an hour.
Neither of them reached for it.
The television was on with the volume turned low, an old Christmas film neither of them was watching. Outside, the neighborhood had settled into the quiet rhythm of Christmas evening, porch lights glowing against the darkness, distant laughter carrying across the street, the occasional car passing slowly through roads that seemed to belong more to families than traffic for one night each year.
Lena sat on one end of the couch.
Her father sat on the other.
Between them lay the journal.
"I thought I would open it," he said finally.
She looked at him.
"Many times."
He smiled without amusement.
"I even took it off the shelf once."
"What stopped you?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
"I real
