“Then include me.”
Hannah nodded.
“Okay.”
They finished dinner.
Then they ate pecan pie.
Hannah had two slices.
Afterward, she asked Linda to show her the Europe photographs.
They sat on the couch while Linda scrolled through the markets, the food, Salzburg, Innsbruck, and eventually the photograph on the bridge in Lucerne.
Mark pointed at it.
“That’s the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one that started everything.”
Linda laughed.
“What did it start?”
“Everyone saw you.”
He shook his head.
“People who hadn’t spoken to you in years were sharing it and saying, ‘Look at Linda.’”
“Look at Linda.”
Mark smiled.
“You looked so…”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Linda looked at the woman laughing in the photograph.
“I was.”
Mark stared at it too.
“I didn’t realize how much of that had disappeared.”
Linda put her hand on his arm.
“Neither did I.”
When Mark and Hannah left around ten, Hannah hugged Linda with both arms.
A real hug.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Come again.”
Linda smiled.
“Not for Christmas or a birthday. Just come.”
“We will.”
Linda believed her.
Not completely.
But more than she would have one month earlier.
