“I wondered that myself.”
“And?”
She looked toward Eleanor’s roses.
“I think some part of me wanted there to be more to the story.”
“Did you think he was telling the truth?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Then why keep the letters?”
Grace thought about it.
“Because throwing them away would have meant I had already decided.”
That sounded like Grace.
Careful even in anger.
Leaving one door unlocked.
“Do you forgive him?” I asked.
She looked at Arthur.
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
Grace smiled.
“Forgiveness isn’t pretending the past happened differently, Caleb.”
“What is it?”
“For me?”
She thought again.
“It was deciding I didn’t need him to become the man he should have been twenty years ago. I only needed to decide what kind of relationship I wanted with the man he was trying to be now.”
I remembered that answer.
I still do.
Because Arthur never became perfect.
