She’d just buried it, the same way she’d buried a lot of things in the years she was busy being Jason’s capable, uncomplaining wife.

The divorce had dug them all back up. That was the strange gift underneath the catastrophe: it had made her honest about who she actually wanted in the next room, and her mother’s voice on a Wednesday evening turned out to be near the top of the list.

Jason rented an apartment near the children’s school. Claire didn’t ask him why; she had decided, as a matter of policy, to judge him only by what he did and never again by what he said, and moving closer was a thing he did.

In December, the property registration went through, and half the Cincinnati house belonged, legally and permanently, to Owen and Zoe. When Claire explained it to her son, Owen just shrugged.

“So does this mean Zoe’s going to want to paint the whole thing pink?”

Claire laughed — really laughed, out loud, the first full laugh she’d had in longer than she could remember.