She sat with the letter long after the sun slipped away, tracing each word as if Peter were speaking across the years. The revelation of a lost child could have poisoned everything they’d shared, but instead it complicated it, deepened it. Their life together had been real, even if it wasn’t whole. Grief, she understood then, isn’t just about what you lose—it’s about what you never knew you had.
Meeting Michael again at Marigold’s, she saw not a betrayal, but a bridge. His stories filled in the blank spaces around Peter’s youth; hers gave Michael a grandfather he’d barely known. The booth that once belonged to a memory now held the fragile beginning of a new family. As they talked, she realized her ritual had never truly been about the past. It was about keeping love alive long enough for it to find its way forward.
