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mental note to fix it before he moved out.
    â€œAre you sure you don’t want to just take your old room? I kept it intact for you all these years.” His mother stood in a dusty corner of what was technically the living room of the carriage house, wringing her hands and doing a poor job of disguising the worry that lined her face.
    Brett thought of the too-small twin bed covered in a baseball-themed comforter, with matching flannel sheets, and the corkboard covered in science fair ribbons and, with confidence, said, “No.”
    â€œBut it’s so musty in here!”
    â€œI’ll open a window.”
    Sharon wrinkled her nose. “I guess I can’t understand why you’d want to live in a garage when you have a whole house just a hundred feet away.”
    â€œIt’s not a garage; it’s a carriage house. And I need my own place, Mom. I’m thirty years old.” He set down the box and gave her a wry smile, which she matched with reluctance.
    â€œI just got so excited when you said you were moving home.”
    Brett tore open a box. He hated how much it meant to his mother that he was back, stirring up the mixed feelings he had over staying away for as long as he had, sometimes not even coming back for holidays. He told himself it was part of the job, that the hours came with the territory, that he had to be the best damn doctor he could be and this was part of it, but deep down he knew it was more than that. Being here brought too much back to the surface. And being away, being busy, made everything so much easier.
    â€œThere’s no telling if the job at Forest Ridge Hospital will work out,” he said, seizing a chance to plant that seed again. He didn’t want to get her hopes up only to end up feeling like he’d let her down. Again. He was here, and he wanted to make the most of his time, but how could he justify moving back now when he’d stayed away when he was needed the most?
    He couldn’t. And with his experience, he was better suited to a trauma center, not a community hospital’s emergency room. He needed to be where his skills were a match. Where he could help.
    Once he got his head straight again.
    â€œNonsense! With your experience? They’re lucky to have you!”
    Brett wasn’t so sure about that. Once he might have thought so, but now… He walked over to the window and turned the lock, suddenly in need of air. His mother was right, it was musty in here. It was once his father’s test kitchen and office for the days he wasn’t busy at his restaurant, and it was clear that no one had been up here since he’d hightailed it out of town when Brett and Mark were just kids.
    Brett glanced at his mother, wondering if being here stirred up bad feelings for her, reminding her of their father. He had thought it would be easier to stay here, rather than in the house, but now he wasn’t so sure. He’d lived for so long without a father that it always seemed impossible to believe he’d ever had one. But he had. He’d had a dad. A dad who’d left without another word. Who never gave him another thought.
    â€œYou don’t mind that I’m taking this space over, do you?” He watched her carefully, knowing it’d been left empty all these years and wondering if there was a reason. He hoped that his mother didn’t hold on to some hope that his dad would return. Even Brett had given up on that dream… eventually.
    She looked at him with surprise. “What? No. No, definitely not. Your father’s been out of my life for years, and I don’t hold on to sentimentality anymore. He chose to leave us behind, never look back.”
    Brett nodded slowly. Wasn’t that what he’d done in a way, when he’d chosen to go to college, leave his family in the lurch? Oh, sure they’d pushed and encouraged, told him he had to do this; his mother had all but insisted. But it never sat