Someone had set out cider in glass pitchers, and the scent of cut grass drifted through the open doors.

We stood at the entrance where I’d waited with Frank a year earlier.

I could remember every sensation: the weight of my bouquet, the faint sawdust on Frank’s cuff, the pause before the quartet changed songs.

I could remember expecting the room to judge me.

Instead, I’d found the courage to walk toward the life I wanted.

“Do you ever wish it had happened differently?” Marcus asked.

I thought for a while.