I was also giving myself two days.
I am not, as I said, a saint. I have my own share of things to reckon with in how my relationship with Paige got to where it was. The dinner was not going to be a simple story where I was the wronged party and everyone agreed I was right. Real situations are not like that, and I knew this one wasn’t.
## Saturday: The Drive to the Lawsons
The Lawsons live in a neighborhood on the north side of Hartfield that I had driven through but never had reason to be in, the kind of street with mature trees and houses that have been maintained with care over several decades. Not wealthy, as Ruth had described herself — comfortable, the word she had used, and I thought it was accurate. A house that said: stable people lived here for a long time and took care of things.
I sat in my car in front of their house for four minutes before I went in. I know it was four minutes because I watched the time on my dashboard and I had given myself a specific amount of time to sit before I made myself move.
What I was doing was deciding, one more time, what I wanted from this dinner. Not the outcome — I could not control that — but what I wanted to contribute to it and what I was prepared to say.
I wanted Andrew to know I existed. That had already happened.