CHAPTER SEVENTEEN — CORRECTIONS
Over the next week, Hannah contacted the people she had misled about the separation.
Andrew did not supervise her calls.
Several relatives forwarded him brief apologies after speaking with her.
He answered each one in his own time.
Denise sent the final event invoice, with the unused inserts and extra equipment removed.
She also sent a copy of the revised tribute for Lillian to keep.
Andrew watched it once more at home.
He found himself smiling at the sight of his mother wearing a cardboard crown during a classroom play.
Marcus came by to help move the broken tree branch into a yard-waste bin.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
Andrew leaned against the garden fence.
“My marriage is ending,” he said.
Marcus set down his gloves.
“I’m sorry.”
“She told another man we had already separated,” Andrew continued.
“Then she planned to announce it at Mom’s retirement celebration.”
Marcus shook his head.
“That’s a lot to carry.”
“It is.”
“What do you need from me?”
Andrew looked at the yard.
“Help me finish cleaning this up,” he said.
“Then maybe we can order dinner.”
Marcus picked up the branch.
“Easy.”
They worked without talking for a while.
Andrew found the silence less frightening than it had been at the resort.
No one was using it to avoid a truth.
It was simply room to breathe.
Later, Hannah called and asked whether he had heard from Ethan.
“No,” Andrew said.
“He ended things with me.”
Andrew did not know what she expected him to say.
“That’s between you and Ethan now,
” he answered.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry for the damage I caused,” she said.
“I believe you’re sorry,” Andrew replied.
“That doesn’t undo it.”
They discussed when she could collect her remaining clothes.
They agreed to meet with a mediator about the practical decisions.
Afterward, Andrew returned to the garden.
Marcus was waiting with takeout containers on the porch.
“Good timing,” Marcus said.
Andrew sat down beside him.
For the first time in days, he was hungry.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — A DIFFERENT ANNOUNCEMENT
A month after the resort weekend, Lillian invited Andrew to speak at the small ceremony marking the reopening of her school’s library.
She had donated several shelves of books and wanted the students to meet some of the former pupils who had contributed.
Andrew hesitated.
“I don’t know if I can make a speech,” he told her.
“Then don’t make one,” Lillian said.
“Just help carry the boxes.”
He arrived on a cool Thursday morning.
The hall smelled of floor polish and new paper.
Children hurried between tables covered with donated novels.
Lillian stood near the entrance speaking to the librarian.
Andrew helped unpack books about astronomy, architecture, and music.
A little girl asked him why the boxes were labeled with so many different names.
“Because a lot of people helped,” he said.
“Does that mean it’s everybody’s library?”
“Yes,” Andrew answered.
“That’s exactly what it means.”
After the ribbon was cut, Lillian took the microphone.
She thanked the students, teachers, and donors.
Then she asked Andrew to come forward.
He shook his head from the back of the room.
She smiled and held out a pair of scissors.
“I need somebody tall enough to reach this ribbon,” she said.
The children laughed.
Andrew crossed the room and cut the last narrow strip of blue fabric hanging above the shelves.
Nothing about his marriage was mentioned.
No one asked him to explain himself.
The children rushed toward the books, and Lillian watched them with delighted eyes.
Andrew held the scissors and thought of the event Hannah had almost transformed into an announcement about him.
This time, he had helped open a door instead.
