“We’re learning.”
Calvin smiled.
“I can live with that.”
There remained one conversation he and Melissa needed to have without me.
They had it shortly before Christmas.
Afterward, Calvin came to the market alone.
He stood by the produce counter pretending to inspect apples.
“How did it go?” I asked.
He picked up one apple.
“Do you charge this much because they’re magical?”
“Changing the subject already?”
He returned the apple.
“We’re not going back to the old marriage.”
I waited.
“At least not now.”
“Are you all right?”
He leaned against the counter.
“I thought if she remembered enough, everything would come back.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She said she spent seven years becoming somebody neither of us knows yet.”
He smiled sadly.
“Then she said I did too.”
“That sounds fair.”
“It is.”
They were not divorcing immediately.
They were not renewing vows either.
They decided to spend time together without demanding an outcome.
Coffee.
Walks.
Family dinners with Ava.
Counseling.
Maybe love would find its old shape.
Maybe it would find a new one.
Maybe they would eventually discover that being good parents and lifelong family mattered more than forcing themselves to recreate a marriage interrupted seven years earlier.
For the first time, Calvin seemed at peace with not knowing.
“So what does Ava think?” I asked.
“She wants everyone to stop discussing grown-up relationships and focus on Christmas cookies.”
“Smartest person in the family.”
“Easily.”
Christmas morning was held at my house.
Melissa arrived first.
She brought cinnamon rolls.
“They’re Mom’s recipe,” she said.
I took one bite.
“No, they’re not.”
Her face fell.
“Too much cinnamon.”
“They’re terrible.”
“You’re terrible.”
“They need practice.”
She crossed her arms.
“Seven years away and you’re still impossible.”
“Some memories survive perfectly.”
She laughed.
Ten minutes later Calvin and Ava arrived.
Ava carried a handmade paper star.
“For Grandma Dorothy,” she said.
We placed it near Dorothy’s photograph on the mantel.
The urn was gone.
For years, its presence had been the center of that room.
Without it, the mantel looked strangely empty.
Melissa stood there a long time.
“I wish I remembered saying goodbye to Mom.”
I went beside her.
“She didn’t get to say goodbye to you either.”
