“Yes.”
“I want to talk to her.” She swallowed. “I don’t know what I’ll say.”
“You can start there.”
She rested her hand over mine.
“Are you okay with that?”
“You don’t need my permission, sweetheart.”
I squeezed her fingers.
“But yes. I’ll help however you want.”
PART 8: What We Could Still Choose
Before I left, Rebecca asked me to send her Anna’s number.
I did it while we were still sitting together. I didn’t ask her to wait until the grief was easier or the timing felt right. There had already been too much waiting.
On the drive home, I pulled into a rest stop and called Anna.
“She knows,” I said.
I heard her take a shaky breath.
“How is she?”
“Hurt. Confused. She’s trying to take it in.”
“Of course.”
“She wants to speak to you.”
Anna went quiet. Then she asked me to say it again.
That evening, I sat on the old green porch swing. Years of weather had faded it into something much closer to the color Carol originally wanted.
I took her ring out of my pocket.
I still loved my wife. I missed the way she called me in for dinner, and I wanted answers she could no longer give me. I couldn’t make one feeling cancel out the other.
Forgiveness would take longer than a promise at a hospital bedside. I didn’t know what it would look like, or whether I would ever reach it completely.
Inside the house, my phone chimed.
It was Rebecca.
“We talked for almost an hour. We’re going to talk again tomorrow.”
I read the message twice. Then I set Carol’s ring carefully in my palm and called my daughter.
For once, there was nothing I had to keep from her.
