“Congratulations,” she said.
“Thank him for me again.”
“I will. He’s — Mom, he’s proud to know you. I want you to know that.”
I did not know what to say for a moment.
“I’m glad,” I said.
“So am I.”
We were quiet for a second, and in the quiet there was something that felt like relief. The particular relief of two people who had been in a difficult place for a long time and could, finally, see the beginning of a different place.
## The Ongoing Work of Being Real
Six months out from the dinner, I want to be accurate about where things stand, because I think the tendency in stories like this is to arc toward complete resolution and I have been trying throughout this account to resist that tendency.
Paige and I talk more than we did before. The conversations have a different quality — more honest, more willing to sit in the uncomfortable parts instead of moving past them. She has not reverted to the careful surface-level communication we were doing before. I notice this and I try to acknowledge it when it happens, because reinforcing the behavior is the right approach and also because I genuinely want her to know I notice.
Andrew and I have a relationship that is real and growing. We text occasionally. He sends me articles he thinks I’ll find useful. I send him the occasional piece of information about the community meals program because he continues to be engaged with it in a way that I appreciate. We are not yet in the easy familiar territory that some parents and children-in-law reach, where you can call for no reason. We are in the earlier territory where you call for a reason and discover the conversation is worth having. That is progress.