“It shows,” I said. “In a good way.”
He laughed. We watched the spin happen again in the second verse.
“I know things aren’t resolved,” he said. “Like, I know it doesn’t fix what happened.”
“It doesn’t,” I said.
“I just — I want you to know I’m going to be more present. With things. With actually understanding what’s going on with you.”
I looked at him. He meant it. He meant it in the way he meant the lunch invitation and the remembered detail about the flickering light — not as a gesture but as an actual adjustment.
“Okay,” I said. “I’d like that.”
“I also want you to know,” he said, “that you’re not going to get a bill from us. Ever. Not for this, not for anything.”
I thought about saying something wry. Instead I just said, “Good.”
The food was excellent. The speeches were the right length. The field turned gold at exactly the right moment and the photographer caught it in at least twelve different frames that I know of because Olivia sent the gallery link three weeks later.
I left at ten. Not because it was a bad evening — it wasn’t — but because I had plans the next morning that I’d been looking forward to for six weeks.
I’d signed up for a continuing education course in healthcare data analysis. It was a twelve-week program offered through the university system, three evenings a week, and it was exactly the kind of thing that would position me for the next move in my career. The move I’d been thinking about since I’d stabilized my savings and started asking what the next version of my professional life looked like.