“He takes after me,” she said, with a kind of dry brevity that surprised me. “His father and I — Gerald managed me. I leaned on it. I never had to learn not to.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I’ve been looking at grief groups,” she said. “There’s one at the community center. I think I’m going to go.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I’m not going to become a different person,” she said. “I’m just saying I know I need to do something differently.”
“That’s all anyone can do,” I said.
We hung up. I stood in the kitchen for a minute, thinking about Gerald, whom I had genuinely liked. Thinking about the weight of being needed and how it moves through families.
## They Came Home
Nathan and Elaine returned on Saturday afternoon. Elaine had her own car — she had driven the three hours down and had her own way home from the inn. Nathan brought back the same bag he’d left with and a small wrapped thing that turned out to be a jar of local sea salt and a card.
I looked at the card. He’d written more than I expected — three paragraphs, in his careful small handwriting, that said what he’d tried to say on the phone but in the considered way that writing allows. He didn’t promise things were fixed. He didn’t offer a neat resolution. He said he wanted to do the work and that he knew saying so was only the beginning of the work.