All the times he’d said, easily, I’ll just work from home today, and I’d thought nothing of it, and he’d been sitting in that office signing his name over and over on documents that would end with my grandfather’s dock under my son’s feet.
I thought about how hard it must have been for him not to tell me — Wade, who is terrible at keeping things, who cannot hold onto a Christmas present for more than a day without hinting.
He had held this for six months.
For me.
And I had repaid six months of the most patient love of my life by nearly tackling a notary into the artisan bread.
I wiped my face, and I laughed again, and both of those felt exactly right.