“Did you forgive him?” Emily thought for a moment.

“Yes,” she said.

“I think I did.” “Are you going back to him?” “No.” And Grace smiled.

“Then you’ve learned something important.” “What?” “That forgiving someone doesn’t mean reopening the door.” Robert set three mugs of coffee on the table.

“I’m having that engraved over the entrance to the foundation,” he said, and all three of them laughed.

But Emily thought about her mother’s answer for a long time afterward, because it had untangled something she had been struggling with since Andrew’s letter arrived.

She had felt, holding that letter, a confusing mixture of things, a genuine softening toward the man Andrew was clearly becoming, a real recognition that his apology was honest and unselfish, and underneath both, a quiet fear that forgiving him meant she was obligated to give him something back, that to say she forgave him was to crack open the door she had closed and let him begin walking back through it.