Back in Boston, things keep shifting.
Jim doesn’t yell anymore. He chews gum until his jaw clicks, stares out the window during meetings. One afternoon he tells us he’s leaving early. Doesn’t explain why.
I hear later.
Beth takes a personal day, then another. When she comes back, she’s calmer. Says she and her ex talked. Really talked. No yelling. No promises. Just truth.
“I let him go,” she tells me over burnt coffee in the break room. “And it didn’t kill me.”
Chris hands in his badge a week after that.
He doesn’t make a speech. Just says he signed papers. Army. Leaves his mug in the sink like he’s coming back tomorrow.
No one stops him.
No one knows what to say.
On the weekends, I keep driving north.
Fixing. Patching. Making lists.
The house feels smaller every time I leave it, like it’s shrinking now that I’m really seeing it.
One Sunday night, as I’m loading my bag into the car, my mother touches my arm.
“You don’t have to do everything at once,” she says gently.
I swallow.
“I know,” I say.
But I’m already planning.
Because loving someone taught me something important—even if it ended badly.
Life doesn’t wait.
Some people run toward the fire.
Some people hold the line.
Some people forgive.
Some people finally leave.
And if I don’t change the things I can change now?—
I’ll wake up one day and realize I stayed too long in places that were already falling apart.
Just like everyone else did.
By the third week, she stops pretending she doesn’t see it.
“What’s wrong, Ethan?” my mother asks as I pull into the driveway, engine ticking as it cools. Same time every Friday. Same question she’s been holding back.
I cut the engine and sit there too long, hands on the wheel, staring at the dent in the hood I’ve meant to fix for years.
“Get dressed,” I say finally. “Something nice.”
