I covered my face.
Everyone laughed.
Then Claire hugged me.
Michael kissed my forehead.
Jonathan raised his glass.
And Daniel slipped the ring onto my finger.
It fit perfectly.
Almost.
Because beneath it remained Robert’s old wedding band.
For a while, I had wondered whether I should remove it.
Instead, I moved it to my right hand.
Not because I was trapped in the past.
Because I was no longer afraid that honoring one love somehow diminished another.
Six months later, Daniel and I married at the lake house.
Small ceremony.
Twenty-four guests.
Jonathan walked Daniel down the aisle as a joke.
Daniel cried anyway.
Claire stood beside me.
Michael gave a speech in which he announced he had “formally accepted that his mother had a more exciting dating life than he did.”
I threatened to remove him from my will.
Harold officiated.
And just before sunset, I walked alone down to the dock.
