I told him about the quiet satisfaction of a marriage that wasn’t passionate but was steady and kind.
And then I told him about the loneliness that had crept in after Robert’s death, about feeling invisible in my own son’s life, about the gradual realization that I’d become more of an obligation than a person to the people who were supposed to love me most.
Today wasn’t an aberration, I admitted.
It was just the most public example of how things have been for months now.
Brandon calls dutifully every two weeks, visits on holidays, and treats me like a chore to be checked off his list.
I thought marriage might change that, make him more family oriented.
Instead, it’s made him even more distant.
Theo’s jaw tightened as I talked, and by the time I finished, his expression was thunderous.
“That boy doesn’t deserve you.”
“He’s not a boy anymore.”
“He’s a 35-year-old man who made his choices.”
I sipped my wine, grateful for its warmth.
“What about you?”
“You said you never married.”
“No children.”
“No children,” he confirmed.
“A few relationships over the years, but nothing that stuck.”
“I kept measuring everyone against you, which wasn’t fair to them or to me.”
The admission hung between us, loaded with implications I wasn’t sure I was ready to examine.
“Theo, what are we doing here?”
“This isn’t just a friendly ketchup dinner between old flames, is it?”
He set down his wine glass and looked at me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
“Eleanor, I’m 70 years old.”
“I’ve built a business empire, traveled the world, and accomplished everything I set out to do.”
“But there’s never been a day in the past 50 years when I didn’t wonder what my life would have been like if your mother hadn’t interfered.”
“We can’t go backward,” I said quietly.
“We’re not the same people we were at 20.”
“No, we’re not,” he agreed.
“We’re better.”
“We know what we want now, what matters and what doesn’t.”
“We’ve lived enough life to recognize real value when we see it.”
The waiter appeared with our appetizers, giving me time to process what Theo was really saying.
When we were alone again, he reached across the table and took my hand.
“I’m not suggesting we pretend the last 50 years didn’t happen.”
“I’m suggesting we decide what we want the next 20 years to look like.”
My phone buzzed against my purse, then again.
again.
“You should probably check that,” Theo said with knowing amusement.
“I suspect your son has done some research since we left the reception.”
I pulled out my phone to find 17 missed calls from Brandon and a stream of increasingly frantic text messages.
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