I glanced over at him at a red light.
“Thank you,” I said.
He looked over. “For what?”
“For keeping that key safe. For trusting your dad and trusting me.”
He leaned his head back against the seat. “He made it easy. He believed in us.”
The following week, we settled Harold’s estate. There wasn’t much besides the house, which I planned to sell, and a few personal items that Kiran wanted to keep. This included a model train from his childhood visits and a coin collection he used to examine with his grandfather. I let him decide what to keep. He’d earned that.
The rest went quietly, with no surprises and no more secrets.
About a month later, after everything was paid off, I sat at the kitchen table with a checkbook and a college application in front of me. Kiran walked in and tossed his backpack onto the couch.
“Do you still want to tour Stanford?” I asked.
He paused. “Yeah. But only if you come with me.”
