Not the Robert I knew.
The Robert before me.
The young man who had gotten lost while insisting he knew exactly where he was.
The man who once tried to cook fish over a campfire and dropped it into the dirt.
The man who fell asleep during a jazz concert.
The man who once spent an entire afternoon trying to repair a broken radio and finally admitted he had made it worse.
“You’re describing my husband,” I said.
Arthur smiled.
“No. I’m describing my friend.”
And somehow that distinction mattered.
Robert had belonged to different people in different ways.
He had been my husband.
A father.
A friend.
A young man before I ever knew him.
I realized that loving someone doesn’t mean owning every version of them.
Sometimes the parts of a person you never knew can still become gifts.
I stayed in Australia three weeks longer than planned.
