She sat with the phone for a long time after the call ended.
Frank had asked quietly. Without pressure — which she recognized as progress, the specific discipline of someone who had learned that asking without pressure was the only kind of asking that deserved an answer. He had said: I know I don’t have the right to ask. I’m asking anyway. If you say no I understand. But I wanted you to know that I want to be there. That I want to be the father you deserved all along, even if I’m starting late.
Ten months sober. The sobriety was real — she had been watching it carefully, the way you watch something fragile that is becoming less fragile, and it had held. His counselor sent her updates, which Frank had authorized because he wanted her to have them. He went to meetings four times a week. He
