she asked me to say it again.
That evening, I sat on the old green porch swing. Years of weather had faded it into something much closer to the color Carol originally wanted.
I took her ring out of my pocket.
I still loved my wife. I missed the way she called me in for dinner, and I wanted answers she could no longer give me. I couldn’t make one feeling cancel out the other.
Forgiveness would take longer than a promise at a hospital bedside. I didn’t know what it would look like, or whether I would ever reach it completely.
Inside the house, my phone chimed.
It was Rebecca.
“We talked for almost an hour. We’re going to talk again tomorrow.”
I read the message twice. Then I set Carol’s ring carefully in my palm and called my daughter.
For once, there was nothing I had to keep
