“The day I realized she was the real heart of everything we were building.”
I stared at the photograph for a long time.
Then I began crying again.
Not the furious tears I'd cried when I first saw Julian's birth certificate.
Not the desperate tears I'd cried after the funeral.
These were different.
I was grieving.
But I was also remembering.
And for the first time, I felt able to hold both truths about Thomas without needing one to destroy the other.
He had loved me.
He had failed me.
He had built a beautiful life with me.
He had hidden something that should never have been hidden.
And now the rest of my life belonged to me.
The following afternoon, Lucy came to my house.
She found me arranging Thomas's anniversary letters in a special wooden box.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, darling?”
She sat beside me.
“Do you still miss Grandpa?”
