Daniel found a new job seven weeks ago. Smaller company, smaller salary than before, and he told Claire the number before he even signed the offer letter. They sat down together and worked out a plan for the credit cards — three years, maybe four, he told me, but a real plan instead of a lie dressed up as one. Claire started managing the household accounts herself for now, not as a punishment, she told me, but because trust is something you rebuild in small, visible steps, and this was the step that made sense to both of them.
Eli met his cousin for the first time properly a few weeks after that awful week, once things had settled enough for a normal Sunday dinner. He informed June, very seriously, in the tone of a seven-year-old delivering important news, that he would teach her everything he knew about dinosaurs “as soon as she could hold her head up by herself.” Claire laughed so hard she had to leave the room. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh like that since the delivery.
