Chapter 14: Distance Without Drama
No reporters called. The internet did not care. Hospitals rarely trend for quiet seventy-nine-year-olds with completed legacies.
I lived through the next months the way I had learned to live—shifts, savings, dinners with Dana, a second attempt at dating that was kinder than the first. Tomas’s friend group still waved when they saw me; the wave did not require a reunion. My life had become a web of ordinary ties instead of a single ladder leaned against a mansion window.
When a customer at the boutique joked that I should find a rich husband, her friend shushed her, embarrassed. I said, lightly, “I tried the express lane. I’m taking local stops now.” They laughed. I closed their sale and felt no sting. The line had become a tool I owned rather than a blade that owned me.
My parents hosted a small anniversary of nothing—two years since the wedding that wasn’t—and we ate cake without irony. My father raised a water glass to “honest work.” My mother rolled her eyes and then raised hers anyway. I raised mine third. The cake was grocery-store sweet. It was enough.
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