Tom looked up.
He gestured helplessly at the house around them. "I told her she needed to grow up. To stop making things and just—just buy nice things like normal people."
He stopped. Pressed his hands over his face. He heard himself make a sound—half laugh, half choke. “I sound like my father.”
He tried to inhale but it came out as a shaky, humiliating sound. His chest felt tight, his throat raw. He wanted to look composed, competent, like the man they’d once trusted with their daughter. Instead he sounded like he was coming apart.
"I am going to fix this," Tom said. The words came out desperate, almost frantic. "I swear I'll spend the rest of my life proving—" His voice broke again. He scrubbed a hand across his face, eyes burning.
When he finally looked up, Gerald’s fists had unclenched and the stiffness in Linda’s shoulders had eased.
They exchanged a glance—one of those long, wordless conversations that said everything. A mix of exasperation, reluctant sympathy, and a dawning, collective realization.
"Son," Gerald said, and his voice cut through Tom's spiral. He didn’t look angry now. He looked… paternal. “You’ve got to pull yourself together."
Tom opened his mouth. Closed it.
Linda stood, smiling. “Right. I’m going to get dinner in the oven." She looked at Tom. "And then you can tell us exactly how you plan to win back our daughter."
CHAPTER 35
Lauren
The wooden plaquelay in front of her, already base-coated in a cheerful coral pink. Tissue paper in various patterns waited to be decoupaged. Her glue gun was warming on the table beside her, and artificial flowers in purple, fuchsia, and gold spilled from their packaging.
She was making her first commission piece.
For Valentine’s Day. The piece Evelyn Kent was paying Lauren to make for her niece.
Bold letters. Celebration. Something to hang as a declaration of freedom. Something to show that she washappilydivorced.
She looked down at her left hand. The plain gold band caught the morning light.
Tom's ring.
Taking it off would be the symbolic end. The final statement.
But she hadn't.
The memory of that hug kept catching her off guard.
The solid weight of his arms around her, the quiet warmth that had felt like safety. She hadn’t realized how starved she was for that—for being held by her husband. For a few fragile seconds on that porch, she’d let herself forget everything else. It had been just warmth and breath and the reminder of what home used to feel like.
I'm grateful that you're still wearing my ring.
Lauren picked up a piece of tissue paper, smoothing it flat. She brushed glue onto the plaque and carefully laid down the first piece of tissue paper. Smoothed it with her fingers, working out the bubbles. The familiar motion steadied her.
Lauren added another piece of tissue paper, this one in a bold geometric pattern that clashed beautifully with the first. Her hands knew what to do even when her mind was spinning.
She was still wearing Tom's ring.
What did that mean?
That she still loved him? She did. God help her, she did.
That she hadn't given up? She hadn't filed papers. Hadn't taken the ring off. Hadn't said the words that would make it real and final and done.
That she was weak? The thought made her hands clench, crumpling the tissue paper she'd been about to place.
