Grace’s was green.
Lily’s yellow.
Faith’s lavender.
He smiled.
“A life I have to choose every day.”
Emily rested her head against his shoulder.
Inside, one of the girls called sleepily.
“Mommy?”
Emily began to stand.
Mark touched her arm.
“I’ve got her.”
She watched him disappear through the door.
A minute later, she heard his voice upstairs.
Soft.
Patient.
Present.
Emily looked down at her wedding ring.
Forgiveness had not been one conversation.
Trust had not returned because Mark apologized.
Their family had not survived because she forgot what happened.
It survived because she remembered something more important:
She was allowed to choose what came next.
And eventually, after watching Mark make the same choice through hundreds of ordinary mornings and difficult nights, she had chosen him again.
Not the man who had walked out of a hospital room promising to return in twenty minutes.
