Chapter 5 - The Long Way Back
After Diane left, Grant stood over the bassinet for a long time.
"Do you forgive her?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Do you forgive me?"
I looked at him. "I don't know."
He nodded and took it. That, more than anything, told me something had actually shifted.
For weeks after, Grant stayed in the guest room — not as a punishment, but because closeness had to become something we chose again, not something we defaulted to. We started marriage counseling. At the first session, the therapist asked why we wanted to save it.
"Because I love my wife," Grant said.
She turned to me. I thought about it for a while. "Because I want to find out whether loving someone is enough of a reason to rebuild trust."
She smiled. "That's an honest place to start."
The work was boring from the outside. No speeches. No grand gestures. Just hard Thursday-afternoon conversations. Grant learning to say *I'm scared you'll be angry* instead of hiding a document. Me learning to say *I'm disappointed* before disappointment hardened into a wall. We opened every account. Every Bishop & Crane email. Every old resentment.
I told him how much Diane's little comments had cut, even when I'd smiled through them. He admitted that finding out who my father was had made him feel like a fool.
"Not because of the money," he said.
"Then why?"
"Because I spent five years believing you trusted me completely. And you didn't."
I looked at the floor. "I trusted you with almost everything."
"That's not the same thing."
"No. It isn't."
Meanwhile, Diane got quietly, awkwardly better at boundaries. She called before she visited. She asked before she bought Owen anything larger than a onesie. The first visit lasted twenty minutes. By the third, I was comfortable enough to leave her and Grant alone with the baby while Dad and I went for coffee.
"You're different," Dad said, across the table.
"I'm sleep-deprived."
"That too. You used to think independence meant needing nobody. You wouldn't take my calls for two years."
"That was different."
"Was it?"
I stirred my coffee and didn't answer. Annoying man.
"I'm glad you called me," he said. "At the hospital."
"So am I."
"I wasn't sure you ever would."
"Dad—"
"I'm not asking for an apology. I'm just telling you I noticed."
Two days before Bishop & Crane opened, Diane invited us to a private dinner. I almost said no. Grant didn't push, and that was part of why I said yes.
The restaurant was genuinely lovely — warm wood, cream walls, plants in the tall windows. Not showy. Thoughtful. Rita Poole met us at the door, energetic and gray-haired and completely unaware that her three unreturned voicemails had launched a week of my suspicion.
"I'm so glad Grant finally called me back," she said.
I looked at him. "You did?"
"Yesterday."
"She needed my updated address," Grant said, "for the guaranty release paperwork."
That was it. The mysterious calls. An address form. Real life almost never cooperates with a good conspiracy.
At dinner, Diane gave a short speech thanking her partners, her staff, and the development program. Then she looked at our table.
"And my family," she said. "Especially the people who loved me enough to stop helping me in the ways that were hurting all of us."
A few guests laughed, assuming it was a joke. We knew it wasn't.
Later, over dessert, my father walked in.
"Diane invited me," he said, before I could ask. He looked around the room. "Your mother would have liked this place."
Diane's face went soft. "I wish I'd met her."
Walking home in the rain afterward, Grant put his hands in his pockets.
"I don't want your father's money," he said.
"I never thought you did."
"I need you to actually hear it. And I don't want you staying with me because leaving would make everyone think we failed. Or because Owen deserves married parents."
I went quiet.
"He deserves parents who respect each other," Grant said. "Whatever address they live at."
A year ago, he'd have fought like a cornered animal to keep the *appearance* of our marriage. Now he was handing me the freedom to choose.
I reached over and touched his hand. Didn't hold it. Just touched it.
"I'm still here," I said.
"I know. That means something."
May you like
His fingers turned under mine. "It means everything."
We walked the last block holding hands. Not reconciled. Not fixed. Just facing the same direction.
