“I was lonely,” she admitted.

“But Willa slept on my chest and I felt this enormous, ridiculous happiness.

I thought I was supposed to feel only one thing.”

“I wish I’d been there.”

“I know.”

It was the first time she said those words without bitterness.

She did not offer to rewrite our past, and I didn’t ask.

I was beginning to understand that reconciliation meant acknowledging loss without pretending it could be undone.