“Maybe she will.

Maybe she’ll laugh differently.

What matters is that she gets to decide.”

I thought about the person Chloe had been before her marriage, and the person she might become afterward.

I had been longing for a return to the past.

Tessa understood something I had not: safety would give Chloe space to become a new version of herself, not force her back into the old one.

Before leaving, Tessa asked if I wanted her to organize meals for the next month.