Claire laughed.
“Terrible cook.”
“Grandpa?”
“Absolutely awful.”
She looked at me.
“He still burned pancakes.”
“Every Sunday, he made pancakes because I loved them. Burned half of them.”
I smiled.
“He still burned pancakes.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“He kept making them?”
“Every Sunday our children were home.”
For the first time since Robert died, I learned something new about him that didn’t feel like a betrayal.
Claire stayed for dinner.
I was meeting the boy he’d been before me.
Claire stayed for dinner.
When she laughed at something Daniel said, she tipped her head back exactly the way Robert had.
Rebecca noticed it too.
Neither of us said anything.
We didn’t have to.
There was a blue envelope.
The following year, on Robert’s birthday, I opened the mailbox.
There was a blue envelope.
My name was on it.
Seeing that handwriting made my chest ache as it had the year before.
Then I realized I wasn’t afraid of it anymore.
I thought you should have one too.
Inside was one line.
I thought you should have one too. Happy birthday to the man we both loved.
I placed it beside Robert’s photograph.
This time, nobody hid it away.
