Chapter 16
Sarah and David remained separated.
A year earlier, I would have wanted a clean ending.
Together or finished.
Now I understood uncertainty could be healthier than forced resolution.
David worked.
Not for DeLuca.
Good.
He stopped asking about South Market.
Stopped discussing council seats.
Stopped treating his marriage like a route to promotion.
Margaret changed slower.
Also fine.
Emma saw David twice a month when she wanted.
Sometimes she refused.
He accepted it.
That was probably his hardest lesson.
One evening Sarah told me:
“I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.”
“You don’t have to know.”
She smiled faintly.
“You hate uncertainty.”
“Yes.”
“Then this must be torture.”
“Terrible.”
She laughed.
Good.
That laugh mattered.
Her leg had healed months earlier.
The deeper recovery took longer.
She stopped flinching when someone entered a room quickly.
Stopped apologizing for changing plans.
Stopped checking her phone every five minutes when David messaged.
Small freedoms.
Invisible to everyone except people who knew what came before.
Emma stopped drawing Mommy on the floor.
That mattered most.
Her new drawings were terrible.
Horses with six legs.
Purple houses.
One picture of me with hair down to my waist.
I kept it anyway.
May you like
“Grandpa pretty,” she explained.
I accepted the judgment.
