I Came Home to Find My Workshop Padlocked – My Daughter-in-Law Had Turned It Into a Nursery. She…

I picked up a piece of sandpaper and got back to work. Six months later, I got a letter with a prison return address in Kevin’s handwriting.

I sat on my porch with a cup of coffee and read it. “Dad, I know you probably don’t want to hear from me. I wouldn’t blame you if you threw this away without reading it. But I need to tell you some things,” the letter began.

“I started therapy in here. Real therapy, not the kind where you just talk about your feelings. We’re working on why I am the way I am, why I thought it was okay to take from people who loved me, and why I blamed everyone else for my problems instead of fixing them myself,” it continued.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking for anything. I just want you to know that I understand now, at least a little bit, how much I hurt you, how much I hurt Uncle Ray, and how much I hurt everyone who tried to help me,” Kevin wrote.

“Britney and I are getting divorced. She’s moving back to her parents’ place with Emma. I told her it was the right thing to do. I can’t be a husband or a father from in here, and she deserves a chance to build a real life,” he said.

“I think about Mom a lot. About how disappointed she’d be if she could see what I’ve become. About how much you did for her when she was sick and how I couldn’t even visit because I was too weak to face it,” he wrote.

“I’m working on being stronger. I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but I’m trying. You don’t have to write back. You don’t have to do anything. I just wanted you to know. Kevin.”

I read the letter three times, folded it carefully, and put it in my pocket. I took a long walk around the neighborhood, waving to Martha and the other neighbors who no longer thought I had dementia.

When I got home, I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter back. “Kevin, I got your letter. Thank you for writing. I’m not going to pretend everything is okay. It’s not,” I began.

“What you did hurt people who loved you, people who would have done anything for you. That can’t be undone with an apology or a therapy session or even a prison sentence. But I’m glad you’re working on yourself. That’s more than I ever expected,” I wrote.

“I’m not ready to visit. I don’t know when I’ll be ready or if I ever will be. But I’m not closing the door completely. I’m leaving it open a crack, which is more than I thought I’d be able to do when all this started,” I continued.

“Your mother would want you to get better. She’d want you to become the man she raised, not the man you chose to be. I want that too, but wanting it isn’t enough. You have to do the work. If you’re really serious about changing, prove it. Not to me, to yourself. Become someone worth forgiving, and maybe forgiveness will follow. Dad.”

I mailed the letter the next morning. Life went on.

I finished the jewelry box for Carol and delivered it in person, staying for pot roast and conversation. I joined a woodworking club at the community center and taught a couple of younger guys how to use the lathe.

Martha started coming over for coffee on Sunday mornings. Sometimes we’d play cards with her husband Frank and another couple from down the street.

One evening, about a year after Kevin went to prison, I was sitting on my back porch watching the sunset when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Ray.

“Just got a money order in the mail. $500 from Kevin. Note says he’s paying back what he stole one month at a time,” the message read.

I stared at the message for a long time. Then I typed back.

“Did you cash it?” “Not yet. Carol and I were talking about it. What do you think?” Ray asked.

I thought about Kevin in his orange jumpsuit. I thought about the letter he’d written, the jewelry box I was making, and the sunset I was watching.

I thought about the life I was finally living instead of just surviving. “Cash it,” I wrote back.

“He owes you that money. Let him pay it back. It’s the right thing to do,” I said.

“You think he’s really changing?” Ray asked.

I watched the sun sink below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink and purple, Dorothy’s favorite colors. “I think he’s trying,” I wrote.

“And that’s more than I thought we’d ever get,” I added.

After I put the phone down, I sat there in the gathering dusk and thought about all the things I’d learned in the past two years. I thought about boundaries, about love, and about the difference between enabling someone and actually helping them.

Dorothy would have understood. She always knew when to be soft and when to be firm, and how to love someone without letting them walk all over her.

I’d spent too many years being soft, afraid that firmness meant cruelty, but it didn’t. Sometimes firmness was the most loving thing you could do.

Kevin might get better; he might not. Either way, I’d done what I could.

I set the boundaries that should have been set years ago. I let the consequences fall where they needed to fall.

I opened the door a crack, just enough for him to walk through if he was willing to do the work. The rest was up to him.

I finished my coffee, went inside, and locked the door behind me. It was my door, my locks, my choice.

I went to bed in my own room in my own house, at peace with the man I’d finally become.