“You said no more secret financial decisions.”
I laughed.
“That rule was about people stealing from me.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Consider it a bonus.”
“You already gave me a bonus.”
“Then consider it my inability to follow instructions at seventy-five.”
She stayed at Ravenswood, but not as some servant rewarded for saving an old man. Eventually she became estate manager, with authority, benefits and a salary appropriate to the work she actually performed.
Sophie started coming every Sunday again.
Ethan returned on Thursdays.
Not because I needed supervision.
Because somewhere along the way, we remembered that family visits did not have to be emergency responses.
One evening, several months after everything ended, Ethan stood with me on the terrace.
“You really thought I skipped the wedding because I wanted your money?”
“I thought you were angry.”
“I was.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I thought you were replacing Mom.”
That struck deeper.
“I wasn’t.”
“I know that now.”
He paused.
“I think I was afraid if you loved somebody else, it meant what you had with her wasn’t as important.”
I looked across Eleanor’s garden.
“I was afraid of something similar.”
“What?”
“That if I admitted how lonely I was without her, then everything I still had somehow wasn’t enough.”
Ethan nodded.
Then asked, “Do you regret marrying Vanessa?”
I thought about it.
“Yes.”
He looked surprised by how quickly I answered.
“But I don’t regret wanting companionship.”
“That part wasn’t wrong.”
I needed years to understand that distinction.
Loneliness had not made me foolish.
Wanting love at seventy-four was not ridiculous.
