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“We’ll eat in the dining room,” she added. “If you’d like to take the lasagna in, I’ve had the children set the table.”

He picked up the heavy casserole dish, its top layer of cheese bubbly and golden, and carried it into the next room. A large table, easily able to seat eight, took up most of the space, though it was set for five tonight with mismatched plates and the slightly crooked placements that came with enthusiastic child helpers.

Why did she have a table this big when she lived alone? Did she host crowd-sized dinners all the time? Music therapy sessions? Craft nights? Book clubs?

The thought that he had no idea what her life looked like now—who sat at this table with her, whom she texted late at night, whom she leaned on when things were tough—hit him hard.

He had no right to know. He had walked away from her.

She followed him into the dining room with a bowl containing the salad, now transformed. She had added not only cucumber slices and bright cherry tomatoes but croutons and what looked like shaved Parmesan. His stomach gave another impatient rumble.

He was relieved when, once they all sat down, his grandfather and the children carried most of the conversation. The children talked about school and their friends and Stanley chimed in with tidbits about the bell choir and the antics of the other Shelter Inn residents.

Her mother’s lasagna was, as he remembered, perfection. Layers of pasta, rich sauce, cheese. Comfort in a casserole dish. Paula Goodwin had always been a great cook.

The Goodwin house had been his second home as a teenager. He had spent countless afternoons there raiding the pantry, laughing with her sons and, much later, kissing her daughter on the back porch when no one was looking.

Her brothers had been like his own, right up until the night he had blown everything apart. After that, they had stopped talking to him, and he couldn’t say he blamed them.

He should call them while he was in town. Maybe enough time had passed.

Then again, maybe not.

He’d made his choice that night and he couldn’t go back and undo it. He had hurt Hannah. All he could do was live with that and hope she truly had built a good life without him.

“Are you ready for the Christmas concert in a few weeks?” Hannah asked Stanley.

“Can’t wait,” his grandfather said. “I’ve got my fancy suit all ready to go.”

“You still have time for the concert, with everything else you have going on?”

“It’s become a tradition,” she said. “It’s been going on for the past five years or so. All the proceeds go to the food bank. People pay in canned goods and we also charge a small admission fee, but people usually give far more than we ask.”

She glanced at the children, her eyes softening. “I decided we would also fundraise for a special cause this year, to cover the health care expenses of one of our newer residents.”

He knew instantly she meant Morgan, which touched him.

“It’s the most festive night of the year,” Stanley declared, pride in his quavery voice.

Hannah smiled softly at his grandfather. “I don’t know about that, especially with the Christmas market in Shelter Springs becoming so huge around here, but we try.”

“What kind of concert is it?” Wes asked.

“A little of everything,” she said. “We usually work with a small children’s choir along with the high school madrigals and a few of the local church choirs. They each perform a few numbers.”

“Don’t forget the Shelter Inn,” Stanley put in.

“That’s right. This year we have a bell choir from the Shelter Inn. Sprinkled in there are a few individual performances and a few smaller ensembles.”

“You should definitely come,” Stanley told him.

“We’re in the kids’ choir,” Riley announced.

“That’s right,” Hannah said. “Riley even has a solo and she does an amazing job.”

The fond look she sent both children twisted something deep in his chest.

If they had married, like he had always assumed they would back in the day, these might have been their children. They could be sitting around this table every night, laughing beneath twirling paper snowflakes and sharing stories about their friends.