I didn’t dare hope for that part.*”
My throat tightened.
“She said she didn’t dare hope for that part,” I repeated.
“No.
She hoped you existed.
She hoped you were alive and well.
But she said she hadn’t let herself hope that you’d be — her words — *someone she’d actually like.*” Patricia laughed softly.
“She said it like it was a bonus.”
I laughed too, a little.
The way you laugh when something is sad and true at the same time.
I put the ring on my finger.
It fit.
I don’t know how.
I had not worn it since the wedding.
But it fit now, perfectly, as if the size had changed or my hand had or both.
I sat in Eleanor’s chair for a little while longer.
The light moved across the floor the way it always had.
Outside the window, someone was walking through the garden below, moving slowly, the way people do when they are not in a hurry to be anywhere else.
