When I returned home, I took Samuel’s letter from the drawer and read it once more.
Then I placed it beside our wedding photograph.
I did not hide it away.
I wanted to remember him honestly.
Not as a perfect husband, and not as a terrible man, but as the person he had been: loving, frightened, stubborn, generous, and capable of hurting me when he tried to protect himself from the truth.
I could love him.
I could forgive him.
And I could still say that what he had done was wrong.
For the first time, those three things no longer felt contradictory.
Nearly two months after the operation, my children organized a family gathering in my garden.
Ruth brought a large apple pie.
David brought enough food to feed an army.
Michael arrived with a cake from the bakery and insisted that it was homemade until his daughter exposed him.
