“I still hate that I did it.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I think if I hate it enough—”
“It won’t unhappen.”
She nodded.
“That’s the problem.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“That’s life.”
She waited.
“We don't get to unhappen things.”
“We get to decide what we do after.”
Her face crumpled.
“You sound like therapist.”
“You paid enough for one.”
She laughed through tears.
We climbed out.
Nothing magical happened.
The pool did not become safe because Vanessa entered it.
My shoulder did not stop aching.
Past did not close.
We dried off.
Ate lunch.
Argued over politics.
Ordinary.
That was better.
Michael died when Vanessa was seventy-six.
Cancer.
She cared for him nearly two years.
At funeral, I sat beside her.
Later she whispered:
“I understand Daniel differently now.”
I turned.
“What?”
“I used to think loving someone meant they should stay through worst thing.”
She looked toward Michael’s photograph.
“Now I think love also means knowing when your presence is damaging them.”
I squeezed her hand.
“Daniel leaving forced you to change?”
“No.”
She shook head.
“I changed because I finally got tired of being person who needed everyone else to absorb me.”
I let that sit.
Then:
“He was right to leave.”
“Yes.”
“Do you wish he had stayed?”
She thought.
“The person I was then wishes he had.”
“The person I became is glad he didn't.”
That answer stayed with me.
Vanessa died before I did.
Eighty-three.
Heart failure.
Peaceful.
I sat beside her in hospice.
She had been drifting in and out for two days.
At one point her eyes opened.
“Emily?”
“I’m here.”
“Shoulder?”
I laughed.
“Still attached.”
She smiled weakly.
“Good.”
Then her expression changed.
“I’m sorry.”
I knew immediately what she meant.
“Vanessa.”