There was room for another mark.
Not yet, I thought.
Not until our child was old enough to stand still.
I put the pencil back.
Then I turned toward Ethan.
“Thank you.”
He looked puzzled.
“For what?”
“For listening all those years. For remembering things I thought nobody else cared about.”
His expression softened.
“I care about the things that matter to you.”
I touched his cheek.
“Even the terrible flower?”
“Especially the terrible flower.”
I laughed and kissed him.
Five years earlier, my mother had stood at our wedding and predicted that our marriage wouldn’t survive a year.
She had measured Ethan by the money he didn’t have, the house he didn’t own, and the future she couldn’t imagine him providing.
But she had misunderstood something fundamental about the man I married.
Ethan didn’t need to prove his worth by humiliating anyone.
He didn’t need to win an argument with my mother.
