I pretended to think.
“I’m handsome, charming, and an excellent husband.”
She threw a gardening glove at me.
I ducked, laughing.
For a moment, she looked exactly as she had beneath the oak tree.
Then I remembered that she was not the same girl.
She was better than my memory of her because she was real.
She was a woman who had survived, who had made difficult choices, who had loved people even when she had been frightened, and who was learning that she could still create something beautiful.
The scars remained.
Some days, she hardly noticed them.
Other days, she would see them in the mirror and become quiet.
I learned not to assume that one good day meant every difficult memory had disappeared.
Healing was not a straight road.
There were nights when she woke from a nightmare and needed time to recognize that she was in our bedroom, not the house where she had spent so many years afraid.
