Jessica swallowed.
“And when you objected, I wanted you to feel foolish for objecting.”
It was the first time she had described the act without hiding behind the children.
“Yes,” Nancy said.
“I’m sorry.”
Nancy heard no demand attached to it.
“Thank you for saying it.”
Jessica glanced toward the doors.
“I don’t expect you to invite me over.”
“I won’t be.”
Jessica nodded, eyes lowered.
They could be civil at school events. They could speak about the children when necessary.
Nancy did not owe her a return to the old closeness, and Jessica finally seemed to understand that an apology could be accepted without reopening a door.
On Nancy’s seventy-third birthday, Brian asked whether she would let him take her to lunch.
“Just us?” she asked.
“The children too, if that sounds good.”
It did.
When they turned into the roadside diner’s parking lot, Nancy went still.
Brian noticed immediately.
“We can go somewhere else.”
She looked at the windows.
Through the glass, she could see the counter and the booths, ordinary in the midday light.
“No,” she said after a moment. “I’d like to go in.”
The waitress recognized her.
This time, she smiled without hesitation and led them to a table with four separate chairs.
Tyler carried a flat package wrapped in brown paper.
He waited until Nancy had ordered before placing it beside her water glass.
“Dad said we could give you this today.”
Nancy opened the paper carefully.
Inside was a small wooden frame holding an old photograph: her late husband sitting across from her in a diner booth, laughing at something outside the picture.
Nancy touched the glass.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the box you gave Dad,” Tyler said.
Brian leaned forward.
“Look at the table.”
Nancy looked again.
The Formica had the same pale pattern. Behind her husband’s shoulder stood the same narrow window.
She lifted her eyes toward the far wall.
“We used to stop here,” she whispered.
“On the way home from visiting Aunt Ruth,” Brian said. “Dad always ordered pie.”
