A truck started somewhere beyond the barn. The ordinary sounds of the property going about its morning, indifferent and sustaining.
“I want you at my wedding,” Samantha said. “I should have said that on the phone. I should have said it before the phone call was ever necessary.” She looked at me directly, which cost her something, I could see it cost her. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
I sat with this.
An apology is not a resolution. It is the beginning of one, the first condition that makes resolution possible, and I had enough experience with difficult things to know the difference between the word and the work that follows it.
“Go back to the hotel,” I said. “Talk to Greg. Not about the property or the wedding. About what I said. About what kind of marriage you are choosing. Then call me.”
“And if he won’t.”
“Then you’ll know something important,” I said. “Better to know it now.”
