Chapter 24
Badly.
“You own six restaurants,” she said. “How are you still terrible at this?”
“I employ people who make coffee.”
“You’ve been practicing for months.”
“Some talents cannot be purchased.”
“Tragic.”
She leaned against the counter.
There was color in her face again.
Her hair had grown past her shoulders.
The thin scar near her temple was fading.
I used to hate looking at it.
Not because it made her less beautiful.
Because it reminded me how close I came to losing the chance to become someone she might choose again.
She reached into her bag.
“I got something.”
She placed an envelope on the counter.
Inside were two tickets.
Seattle.
I looked at her.
“Gabriel?”
She nodded.
Evelyn’s son.
During the Harbor Ridge review, we had learned that Gabriel Mercer had become an architect specializing in affordable housing.
The boy my mother quietly helped educate had grown into a man designing homes for families who rarely appeared on the guest lists of people like me.
“He invited Evelyn to see his new project,” Clara said.
“And us?”
“He invited me.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Clara smiled.
“I added you.”
“How generous.”
“I thought you might want to see what your mother’s tuition checks helped create.”
I looked at the tickets.
“Are we traveling together now?”
Clara’s smile faded into something gentler.
“Maybe.”
That single word meant more than every promise I had tried to make.
I looked at her.
“Clara.”
“Hm?”
“Are we okay?”
She considered it.
“No.”
I nodded.
Then she stepped closer.
“But I think we’re becoming okay.”
I let out a breath.
“That’s enough.”
“For today.”
“For today.”
She reached for her coffee.
Then stopped.
“This is awful.”
“I know.”
“How did you make it worse?”
“Consistency.”
She laughed.
And there, in a sunlit kitchen I once considered too small for our lives, my wife laughed at my terrible coffee while two plane tickets waited between us.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Nobody made a speech.
There was no perfect forgiveness.
That was the part I had needed years to understand.
Forgiveness was not a door that opened once.
It was a house rebuilt room by room.
Sometimes the old foundation remained.
Sometimes you had to replace parts you had assumed would last forever.
And sometimes rebuilding meant accepting that the new house would never look exactly like the old one.
Maybe that was good.
Chapter 5: What a second chance looks like
We went to Seattle.