“Mom baked?” Billie asked skeptically.
“No,” I said immediately. “Absolutely not. She had someone else bake the treats.”
Winnie coughed to hide a laugh.
“Your mother once burned soup.”
“How?” Bianca asked.
“We still don’t know.”
CJ grinned. “Maybe she was experimenting.”
“She was a fire risk in kitchens,” I said.
Winnie looked deeply offended on behalf of kitchens everywhere, and I smiled despite myself.
“She also got reprimanded once for arguing with a judge,” I continued.
Billie gasped. “Did she win?”
“She technically lost the argument.”
“But emotionally?” CJ asked.
“Emotionally, she buried him.”
The kids giggled.
I pointed toward one of the side hallways visible through the courthouse windows. “That’s where she first flirted with me.”
Bianca looked horrified. “In a courthouse?”
“It was very unprofessional.”
“What did she say?” CJ demanded.
I rubbed the back of my neck.
Winnie looked entirely too interested in hearing what was about to come out of my mouth.
“She told me my tie made me look like an amateur.”
Billie burst into laughter. “That’ssomean.”
“It was accurate,” I admitted. “I wasn’t the best at purchasing professional-looking ties, and I was even worse at tying them correctly.”
Winnie smiled down at the pavement. “You liked her immediately,” she said.
I looked around the courthouse slowly. “Yeah,” I said honestly. “I did.”
It didn’t feel odd to talk to Winnie about Jade. I didn’t feel like I had to choose between them, divide my emotions. Winnie never made me feel guilty for loving my wife. She listened to stories about Jade with real warmth. But sometimes, when I caught her expression, there was something else there too. Something that made me think it hurt her a little to hear me talk about loving another woman.
We ended the day at the cemetery. Winnie had stayed behind to give us privacy, but I eventually called her over. In a way, I wanted to introduce her to Jade, as morbid as that might sound. It had been a beautiful day that captured the essence of Jade, which was really all I could ask for, and Winnie had been part of it.
By the time we got home, the kids were running on exhausted energy like overtired toddlers. Billie had reached the phase where she couldn’t stop talking. CJ had reached the phase where he narrated everyone else’s emotional states like a nature documentary.
And Bianca had entered full denial. “I’m not tired,” she informed us while walking directly into the coat rack.
