Tears pressed behind my eyes, but I refused to cry in that kitchen.
For eight years, I had packed Hannah’s lunches, sat through freezing track meets, stayed awake with her after heartbreak, driven three hours to college when she thought one failed chemistry exam had ruined her life, cleaned bathrooms when she was sick, helped with prom dresses, proofread applications, and taught her to cook her mother’s chicken casserole from an old recipe.
I had never asked for a title.
Hannah called me Jenna.
I had always believed that was enough.
Apparently Greg thought even my place in her life needed boundaries he could define.
I switched off the steamer.
“Okay.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“I heard you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You said I’m not her mother and I should stop acting like I am.”
Greg shifted.
“I said you’re not her mother. That’s simply a fact.”
“Yes.”
“And this week is emotional.”
“Also yes.”
“I just want boundaries.”
I nodded.
“Then you’ll have them.”
Relief crossed his face.
That hurt more than the original sentence.
I carefully laid Hannah’s rehearsal dress over a dining chair and picked up the velvet box.
Greg watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting Audrey’s pearls somewhere safe.”
“You don’t have to be dramatic.”
I gave him a humorless smile.
“I’m being practical.”
Then I walked into the guest room and closed the door.
I slept there that night, not because Greg asked me to, but because lying beside him felt impossible.
As the ceiling fan turned above me, I replayed eight years and wondered whether I had misunderstood my marriage completely.
Greg and I met when I was forty-one.
He was forty-five.
Hannah was fourteen, and Audrey had been gone four years.
Greg was a residential contractor who could replace a water heater, frame a wall, level a floor, and avoid almost any emotional conversation lasting longer than ninety seconds.
He wasn’t cold.
Greg simply loved through tasks.
If your tire pressure was low, he fixed it. If the porch light flickered, he replaced it. If you were cold, he changed the thermostat instead of offering a blanket.
After Audrey died, he raised Hannah the same way.
