Week four: I got an email from my aunt Susan saying my mother had called her to correct the story. Susan wrote: ‘I just wanted you to know I know what actually happened. I’m sorry.’ I replied: ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ That was a short exchange that mattered.
Week five: Elise found the dress. She sent me the photo. I told her it looked great and meant it.
Week six: I began working on the sleeve cuff repair. One evening, as I said. I finished in that one evening.
Week seven: Ben and I had what turned out to be one of the more important conversations of our marriage to that point — about how I communicate with my family, and how I had historically allowed things to slide that I probably shouldn’t have, and what I wanted to do differently going forward. This conversation lasted about two hours. We ordered food in the middle of it and kept going.
Week eight: I confirmed with my mother that I would attend the wedding. Not a long conversation. She said she was glad. I said I was glad too, and I was, actually, by that point.
Week nine: I made the dress I wore to the wedding. Three evenings of work, a pattern I already had, a fabric I had in my stash. It was simple and right and entirely mine.
Week ten: the wedding.
The ten weeks were not a continuous crisis. They were a series of distinct things, some of them hard and some of them ordinary. That is what most of life is: a series of distinct things that only look like a coherent story in retrospect.