And finally, Roland and I stood across from each other in a lawyer’s office.
He looked older.
I probably did too.
He placed his pen down.
“Simone.”
I looked at him.
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
“I wish I could change what happened.”
“So do I.”
He swallowed.
“Can I still see Wren?”
I thought about it.
“Yes.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Thank you.”
“But there will be conditions.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
“You will never discuss money with her.”
“I won’t.”
“You will never use her to get to me.”
“I won’t.”
“And if you ever allow someone else to manipulate you into hurting her again, you’ll lose that privilege.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
He stood.
Then hesitated.
“Do you hate me?”
I thought for a long time.
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Then what do you feel?”
I looked at him.
“Grief.”
He lowered his head.
“I loved who I thought you were.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“And I miss who I thought we were.”
He wiped his eyes.
“Me too.”
Then he walked away.
I didn’t follow.
Six months later, Wren began crawling.
She was determined.
She would crawl across the living room, stop beside the coffee table, pull herself up, fall down, laugh, and try again.
My father would clap every time.
“You’re going to be a troublemaker,” he told her.
I laughed.
“She gets that from you.”
“Absolutely not.”
For the first time in months, our house sounded happy again.
Not the forced happiness I had known in my marriage.
Real happiness.
Messy.
Loud.
Honest.
One afternoon, I received a letter.
It was from Roland.
I almost didn’t open it.
But eventually I did.
It contained only one page.
He wrote that he had started working again.
Not in finance.
Not in his old company.
He was teaching accounting at a community college.
He said he wanted to learn how to live without taking shortcuts.
At the bottom, he wrote:
“I finally understand what you meant when you said family is something you protect, not something you use.”
