Our first few calls stayed short, mostly logistics, mostly weather. Both of us testing careful new boundaries neither of us had a script for. By the second month, she started asking real questions again, about the kids. About my own work. About ordinary things that had nothing to do with the house at all. It felt strange at first. Talking to her without the constant undercurrent of tension I’d grown so used to I’d stopped noticing it was even there.
She asked to see the kids again about six weeks after the signing, tentative. Almost shy about the request in a way I’d never once seen from her before.
“I’d like to take them for ice cream,” she said over the phone. “If that’s alright with you.”
Her voice sounded smaller on the phone than I remembered, careful in a way that made me realize how much energy she must have spent. Over the years, projecting the confidence she rarely actually felt underneath it all. “That’s alright,” I said. “As long as you’re respecting our house going forward, the way anyone else would.”
“I understand,” she said. “I think I finally do understand that.”
She was quiet on the line for a moment afterward. And I almost thought the call had dropped before she spoke again, softer this time. “Thank you for still letting me be part of their lives,” she added. “I know I haven’t earned. That easily.” “You’re earning it now,” I told her. “That’s enough for me.”
