I hesitated.
Then I opened the gate wider.
“They should at least know who fixed their fence.”
That winter, he didn’t break into my yard again.
He knocked.
And slowly—awkwardly—he became someone my children waved to.
Not a hero.
Not a replacement.
Just a man trying to mend what he could—one board at a time.
And for the first time in my life, I let him try.
