I appreciated that more than he understood.
By Christmas, we were dating.
Quietly at first.
Then without hiding.
Some relatives didn’t approve.
I didn’t organize a committee to discuss it.
I was forty-six, financially independent, and capable of deciding whom I wanted beside me.
Paige stopped speaking to me for a while.
It hurt.
Of course it hurt.
But Graham never asked me to choose between him and my daughter.
And I never asked him to erase their history.
In March, my daughter was born.
Seven pounds, one ounce.
Healthy, loud, and furious about being introduced to the world.
I named her Caroline, after my grandmother.
Frank disputed paternity initially, but testing after the birth confirmed it.
The legal arrangements concerning support were handled separately.
Caroline was not going to grow up as leverage in somebody else’s property dispute.
That much I could control.
One morning in early October, more than a year after the storm, I walked out onto the back porch carrying two mugs of coffee.
