And gradually learned to live within his means.
Sometimes he called just to ask how we were doing.
Sometimes he visited Eleanor for coffee.
And eventually, the awkwardness between us began to soften.
One year later, Eleanor and I celebrated our forty-third wedding anniversary at a small restaurant overlooking the Connecticut shoreline.
Daniel joined us.
He didn’t arrive with expensive gifts.
Instead, he brought a framed photograph taken twenty years earlier.
It showed the three of us standing outside our old family home.
Eleanor had her arm around Daniel.
I was smiling behind them.
On the back, he’d written:
Thank you for teaching me that respect matters more than money.
Eleanor read the message twice.
Then she hugged him.
Later that evening, when we returned home, I noticed the dining table.
Eleanor had covered it with her handmade ivory tablecloth.
The very same one Vanessa had dismissed as cheap.
