“You hate when I play.”
“I hate when you shoot from fifty feet.”
“I make them.”
“One out of twelve.”
“Still counts.”
Miles laughed.
Walter sat on the porch.
Renee watched from the kitchen window.
Nobody invited her outside.
That hurt.
She accepted it.
A few minutes later Miles turned.
“Mom.”
She opened the door.
“What?”
“You keeping score?”
Her face fell.
Then she realized he meant basketball.
“Oh.”
She smiled faintly.
“Sure.”
Darius tossed Miles the ball.
“First to eleven.”
Miles caught it badly.
Darius stared.
“You are disrespecting Dad’s memory with that catch.”
Miles laughed.
The game began.
The sneakers became dirty.
Marcus would have approved.
The family did not repair itself that day.
That would have been a lie.
Miles stopped trusting gifts from Renee for months.
Every time she handed him something, he asked:
“Is this mine?”
The first time, Renee cried afterward.
The fifth, she simply answered:
“Yes.”
When she bought Darius something, she told Miles where the money came from even when he did not ask.
That annoyed him.
“Mom, I don't need receipts for his hoodie.”
“I know.”
“Then stop.”
She was learning that transparency could become another form of asking a child to manage adult guilt.
Therapy helped.
Not immediately.
Renee hated the first therapist.
“She keeps acting like everything is my fault.”
Walter said:
“Some things are.”
Renee glared.
Then laughed despite herself.
They found another therapist anyway.
Dr. Paula Green.
Her first rule was simple:
No one was allowed to use Marcus as evidence for what somebody else should do.
“He would want…”
“He would hate…”
“Marcus would never…”
All banned.
“He is not available to clarify,” Dr. Green said.
“Use what he actually wrote or leave him out of arguments.”
That rule changed the house.
The letters became memories rather than weapons.
Walter attended several family sessions.
He hated therapy more than Renee.
“Why am I here?”
Dr. Green asked:
“Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I prefer complaining.”
At seventy-one, Walter learned how often he had treated Darius as an extension of Renee rather than his own grandson.
Not legally.
Not biologically.
Relationally.
The distinction mattered less as years accumulated.
He started small.
Darius had an away game.
Walter attended.
No big announcement.
Afterward Darius said:
“You didn't have to drive two hours.”
Walter answered:
“I know.”
The next game, he came again.
Then missed one because his back hurt.