“Seventeen years,” he said. “You want to know what I think when I look at you in the morning? When you’re standing in the bathroom in that old blue robe?”
I couldn’t speak.
“I think, There she is,” he said. “That’s what I think. Every morning. There she is. The girl I spilled wine on. The woman who held my hand when the doctor told us about the miscarriage. The woman who sat with her mother for two years and never once complained. The woman who ate spaghetti four nights a week and made it taste like a party.” His voice cracked. “The woman who raised the smartest, most eye-rolling daughter in Ohio. That’s who I see. I’m not bored, Jan. I’m the luckiest man on this whole street.”
I started crying again. Harder this time. He pulled me against his chest and held me.
