A friend told me she bought a birthday card for her mother that had bananas on it. The ones on the front had slightly green skins, and the bunch inside were coffee brown. The message was concise.

"One day makes a difference."

The moat I wrote earlier this week was a poignant vignette about serendipity. How God is watching out for us in incredible details. But the day it went out I was feeling light years away from any sense of providence. I was mad at Ben and had no intention of considering the possibility of God in this moment. Yet I kept getting pings on my phone from all of the hundreds of people who were moved by the story, a story that had felt precious and magical to me only the day before.

Yesterday Ben's brother invested a chunk of emotional energy listening to him, as if his feelings about superheros and a school he went to six years ago have bearing on how he behaves today. Zack asked if I could address those feelings as real, and even apologize for the harm that Ben perceived. Which was absurd. 

But in the morning it did not seem so far fetched, and over breakfast I did exactly that. 

"I love you, Benjamin, and I am so sorry you were unhappy at Nexus School. I wish I had not sent you there. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes." A flash of relief appeared in his eyes. "I could have gone to Murray Avenue instead." The hug when he walked out to the bus was not forced. Or wooden. It was warm.

The funny thing is when he holds anxiety, and I clutch resentment, we are both as flavorless and unbending as green bananas. But something happens when fruit ripens. Sweetness appears out of nowhere. 

I think I will surprise him with banana muffins after school.