I rested my hands around a mug of tea.
“And now?”
“Now I understand that showing up is the part that matters. And listening before I decide what someone needs.”
I looked at him.
“Understanding it isn’t the same as doing it.”
“I know.”
He did not ask me whether I had forgiven him.
He did not ask whether I missed him.
He had learned, slowly, to let my silence belong to me.
Our divorce was finalized the following spring.
The papers arrived in a plain envelope, and I signed the acknowledgment at Daniel’s office with Eleanor sleeping in her stroller beside me.
There was sadness in the finality, though not the old confusion.
I had loved Alexander.
I had also needed to leave the marriage.
Both truths could live together.
When I told him the divorce was official, he listened and then said, “Thank you for telling me.”
