That sentence entered him.
Camille continued:
“And I’d say: If you need proof your husband loves your boys, ask him.”
“Do not manufacture a test he doesn’t know he’s taking.”
Marcus exhaled.
He thought of every relationship destroyed by secret tests.
If they care, they will notice.
If they love me, they will know.
If they understand, I should not have to ask.
Humans build exams for people who never receive the syllabus.
Then punish failure.
“I would tell myself one more thing,” Camille said.
“What?”
“Don’t confuse fear with intuition.”
Marcus nodded.
That had shaped half their problems.
Fear says this will happen.
Intuition says something may be wrong.
Fear demands certainty.
Truth asks questions.
They kept walking.
Slowly.
At eighty-two, Andre died.
Liver disease and age.
Not directly from relapse.
Maybe partly.
Life rarely separates.
Jordan and Eli organized funeral.
Marcus attended.
So did Camille.
Andre’s former wife? Camille was former wife. Yes.
At service, Jordan spoke.
He did not sanitize.
“My father loved us.”
“He also disappeared from us.”
“He got sober.”
“He relapsed.”
“He came back.”
“I spent much of childhood waiting for him and much of adulthood learning not to.”
He looked at coffin.
“But the last twenty years, when he said he’d come, he usually came.”
“That mattered.”
Eli spoke next.
“When I was little, I thought adults were either good at being parents or bad.”
“Then I had three parents and all of them ruined that theory.”
Laughter.
“Dad failed us.”
“Dad also worked hard not to keep failing in same way.”
“That is the version of him I want to carry.”
Camille cried openly.
Marcus held her hand.
After service, Jordan approached Marcus.
“You okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Jordan shrugged.
“You and Dad had weird relationship.”
“We respected each other eventually.”
“Were you jealous?”
“Sometimes.”
Jordan smiled.
“I knew.”
“How?”
“You were terrible at hiding.”
Marcus laughed.
Jordan hugged him.
“You never made us choose.”
That was perhaps the greatest compliment Marcus ever received as stepfather.
He held Jordan longer than usual.
When Andre’s ashes were later scattered near lake where he took boys fishing during sober years, Marcus did not go.
That was theirs.
Respecting absence can be love too.
At eighty-three, Camille began having health issues of her own.
Arthritis.
Then a small stroke.
She recovered speech quickly but her right hand remained weak.
For a woman who had spent her life controlling details, losing fine movement infuriated her.
Buttons.
Writing.
Opening jars.
Marcus became hands sometimes.
She hated asking.
He waited.
One morning she struggled with necklace clasp for five minutes.
Marcus watched from mirror.
Finally:
“Want help?”
“No.”
Two minutes later:
“Yes.”
He clasped.
No comment.
She looked at reflection.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“Don’t make a thing.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re making face.”
“This is my face.”
“Unfortunate.”
They smiled.
The stroke also changed Camille emotionally.
She cried more easily.
Neurological, doctor said.
Marcus learned not every tear meant sadness.
Sometimes commercial.