There was a photo. A red-faced baby wrapped in the cashmere blanket I had bought months ago. On the back, in Cassie’s handwriting.
Your grandson? If you want to meet him, call me dot. I set the card on the mantle. Next to it, a photo from a recent museum fundraiser.
Me, surrounded by new friends, smiling in a way I hadn’t in years. I looked at Alexander’s picture. I felt something.
Not regret, not pain, just a quiet acknowledgment of what could have been. But I didn’t call. Some bridges, once burned, should remain ashes.
One year passed. Then two. I sold the old house and bought a smaller place near the lake.
It had a sunroom where Churchill could sleep in sunbeams and a wildflower garden that bloomed with color every spring. I dated briefly a kind widower named Robert who taught architecture at the community college. We shared dinners, laughed often, and agreed that friendship suited us best.
Sometimes I heard bits of news through town, Michael had been passed over for partner, Cassie’s boutique failed, James filed for divorce and had custody of Alexander, Patricia Reynolds had a sudden stroke and passed away. They were struggling. And yet, I felt no need to return, no maternal pull to rescue, to fix, to give.
Because I finally understood something I wish I had known all along. That love without boundaries isn’t love. It’s servitude.
I had spent my life teaching my children how to take. But in the end, the most important lesson I ever gave them was how it feels when the giving stops. And whether they learned it or not no longer mattered.
Because I did. And that, at last, was enough.
