“The important thing is that we’re together now,” Leo replied. “And Uncle Mike is with us, too.”
Little Kyle was playing on the floor. Mike was showing him how to make paper airplanes. The boy would be staying with them; he had no one else to raise him. Mike turned to David.
“Thank you for your son. And forgive me for that old grudge. Ellie was right: family should stick together.”
“Ellie brought us together across the years,” David replied quietly. “Even after she was gone, she brought us together through Leo.”
“Now Kyle has a real family, too,” Leo said, stroking the little boy’s hair. “It’s not his fault what his mom did.”
A month later, Leo moved in with his uncle at the cabin in the woods—he found it easier to study and heal from the trauma there. The fresh air, the quiet of the forest, and his uncle’s care helped him forget the nightmare of living with Brenda. David sold the city house and bought a home closer to his late wife’s brother. Now they lived in neighboring towns and saw each other every day. They raised Kyle together. The little boy, innocent of his mother’s schemes, quickly adapted to his new, loving family.
Every Sunday, the three of them would drive to the cemetery to visit Eleanor’s grave. For the first time in 15 years, Mike visited his sister and knelt for a long time, asking for forgiveness for all the lost years. And Leo would tell his mom how their broken family had been made whole again, all because he got lost in the winter woods. They brought flowers, tended to the gravesite, and every time, they felt that Ellie was there with them.
“You know, Uncle Mike,” Leo said on one of those trips, as the three of them stood by his mother’s grave, “if my stepmom hadn’t kicked me out, we never would have met.”
Mike put his arm around his nephew and pulled him close.
“I guess that means, son, that even the worst things can lead to the best things. Your mom brought us together this way, through you. She knew we needed each other.”
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