Thankfully, Pati chose that moment to drop a bomb.
“Oh, Nana’s going to Harold and Edith’s anniversary party with Popeye,” she said casually, reaching for another cookie.
The room went silent.
Every head turned toward me.
“I am not,” I said through gritted teeth.
“He invited you,” Pati said. “I heard him.”
“And I said no.”
“Did you, though?”
I glared at her. “Patricia Elaine Rose, I swear?—”
“Wait, Harold Foster?” Beatrice asked. “That man was a fool to pick his children over you.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I appreciated Beatrice’s defense.
Harold.
Even thinking his name made something twist in my chest. Harold had been... different. Not like Terry, who’d been steady and safe and predictable. Harold had been passion and fire and late-night conversations that stretched until dawn. He’d made me feel alive again after years of widowhood, made me remember what it was like to want someone so badly it hurt.
And then his children had gotten involved.
You’re not our mother. You’ll never be our mother. Dad’s making a mistake.
I’d told Harold it was fine. That I understood. That family came first.
But the truth was, it had gutted me. Watching him choose them over me, over us, over what we could have been. Watching him marry Edith six months later. Safe, boring Edith, who his children approved of because she didn’t threaten their inheritance or their memories of their dead mother.
Edith, who didn’t have children or grandchildren to compete with for Harold’s affection. As if the man could only love some many people.
I’d told myself I was over it. That it didn’t matter anymore.
But standing in that bakery with Stephen’s arm around my waist, watching Harold’s face go pale and Edith’s turn smug, I’d realized I wasn’t over it at all.
And Stephen... God, Stephen was nothing like Harold.
Stephen didn’t care what anyone thought. Didn’t care about propriety or appearances or what was appropriate for people our age. He wanted me, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. Wasn’t afraid to claim me in front of the whole damn town if that was what it took.
Harold had chosen his children.
Stephen was choosing me.
And that terrified me more than anything.
My heart was racing now, my breath coming shorter. I could feel the weight of every woman’s stare on me, waiting for me to say something, to explain myself. But how could I explain that I was scared? That at almost seventy years old, I was absolutely terrified of letting myself hope again.
Harold had taught me what hope cost. What it felt like to believe in something beautiful, only to watch it crumble because you weren’t enough. Because his children’s approval mattered more than your happiness. Because in the end, you were just the woman who came after, never the one who stayed.
I’d survived losing Terry. I’d survived losing Harold.
But Stephen... Stephen felt different. Bigger. More.
Because with Harold, I’d always known, deep down, that he would choose them. That his guilt over moving on from his late wife would eventually win. That I was temporary.
