I held the letter against my chest.
Diane took my hand.
“I loved Mark,” she said. “I always will. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being a monument to the worst day of mine.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know that now.”
She looked toward the window.
“Do you think they knew?”
“Who?”
“Our fathers. Do you think they knew that one day we’d be here?”
I thought about the letters, the desk, the workshop, and the strange path that had brought us together.
“No,” I said. “I think they hoped we’d be brave enough to finish what they started.”
Diane smiled through her tears.
Then she leaned forward and kissed me.
I had spent years believing that love was something I had to earn by enduring pain.
I had believed that if a relationship was difficult enough, it must be meaningful.
I had believed that being alone was safer than risking the possibility of losing someone again.
