We agreed not to make announcements, not to let the children carry our uncertainty, and not to confuse physical affection with a promise of marriage.

It was a very adult conversation, awkward in places and necessary in all of them.

Our first actual date happened two months later.

We went to a neighborhood restaurant with paper napkins, a place Lauren liked because the owner remembered her when the boys were babies.

She told me about a commission she’d won, about a difficult client, and about how exhausted she was of being identified only as the mother of four.

I realized I’d been listening to her parenting for two years and had almost forgotten to ask what she wanted for herself.