“You were overwhelmed.”
“Yes.”
“We thought once things settled—”
“They didn’t settle for ten years, Mom.”
My mother flinched.
Denise’s voice softened.
“I’m not saying I made good choices. I didn’t. But I told you not to make Joanna wait.”
Mom looked at me.
“I thought we were protecting everybody from making something permanent too quickly.”
“You protected the possibility of Denise changing her mind,” I said.
Mom nodded helplessly.
“Yes.”
“And what about the possibility of me building a life around the reality I was already living?”
No one answered.
Ethan’s foot touched mine under the table.
A small deliberate press.
I looked at him.
He was watching me closely.
I realized he had spent years trying to solve an adult problem because none of us had been brave enough to put the pieces on the same table.
I took a slow breath.
“Okay,” I said.
