I told him his science teacher sounded like a sensible person.
One cold evening in November, nearly a year after the storm, I saw Patricia Whitmore in the grocery store.
She was standing near the pharmacy counter holding a small paper bag.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she looked older than I remembered.
She saw me before I could turn away.
For a moment, I expected her to cross the aisle and begin another argument.
Instead, she walked toward me slowly and stopped several feet away.
She said she wanted to apologize for what had happened in my driveway.
Her voice was quiet enough that the cashier nearby could not hear.
I waited because I had learned not to fill every silence.
She said she had been frightened during the outage and had made decisions she could not defend.
She admitted that she knew the generator belonged to me before she entered my garage.
She said she had convinced herself that an emergency excused taking it.
Then she looked at the floor and said that calling the deputies had been wrong.
I asked whether her mother had been safe that night.
Trish said her mother had stayed at a relative’s house across town after the roads were cleared.
She said the family had been frightened, but no one had been hurt.
I felt a weight leave me that I had not realized I was still carrying.
I told her I was glad her mother had been safe.
Then I told her that my son had watched her drag the generator toward her SUV.
Her face changed.
She said she had not known he could see.
I told her that children noticed more than adults expected.
She nodded and wiped at one eye with the back of her hand.
I did not tell her everything was fine because everything had not been fine.
I told her I accepted that she had apologized, but I needed her to understand that what she did had frightened my family.
She said she understood.
We stood beside the pharmacy for another moment without speaking.
Then she wished my family well and walked away.
I watched her go and realized I had not needed that apology in order to move on.
Still, hearing it made the memory less sharp.
When I got home, Rachel was putting away groceries and Noah was setting the table.
I told them I had seen Trish and that she had apologized.
Noah stopped with a fork in his hand.
He asked whether I believed her.
I said I believed she understood at least some of what she had done.
