Now I could resume one of them.

I opened the curtains.

The light reached across the floor and stopped beneath the dresser.

Nothing about it looked like an ending written for an audience.

It was the same morning light I had seen for years, in a room I knew.

Robert’s plea remained real.

Linda’s cooperation did not erase her choices.

Megan’s payments and the end of her wedding plans were not mine to reverse or intensify.