I was wrong.
The most surprising thing was learning I could still begin again.
Not because the past disappeared.
Not because every lie was forgiven.
Not because every relationship returned to what it had been.
But because life had given me something I thought belonged only to younger people.
A second beginning.
I walked upstairs and paused beside the bedroom mirror.
The green dress hung inside my closet.
I touched the sleeve.
Then I smiled at the woman in the reflection.
A year earlier, I barely recognized her.
Now I did.
Her name was Margaret Bennett.
She was sixty-three years old.
She had been a wife.
A widow.
A woman betrayed.
A mother lied to.
A woman frightened by secrets she never deserved to carry.
And she was still here.
Still choosing.
Still laughing.
Still capable of love.
On the nightstand beside my bed sat one final envelope.
Michael had left it earlier.
