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He kissed my cheek before stepping back.

Claire wrapped both arms around me with all her weight, the way she had when she was six.

“Thank you for tonight,” I said. “You did too much.”

“Mom, I ordered cake. I’m basically a humanitarian.”

“You are.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Text me when you get home.”

I laughed. “That’s my line.”

“I’m stealing it. Midlife is about reinvention.”

“I’m fifty, not dead.”

She pressed her lips together while checking that I had my purse, my wrap, and the small gift bag she’d tucked beneath my chair as that crease appeared between her eyebrows.

I touched it with one finger.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She climbed into her red Lexus and waved through the open window.

Ben left in a cab bound for Tremont, where friends and plans waited. Paul opened the Volvo’s passenger door for me.

At the first red light, his right hand cramped like I knew it would. He’d broken two fingers playing lacrosse in college, and they stiffened after sitting for long periods of time. He lifted his hand from the wheel, flexed it once, then rubbed the knuckles with his thumb before resting it on my knee.

I covered his hand with mine.

“Big day,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He didn’t push, Paul never did.

At twenty-three, I’d loved his restraint. It felt safe after a childhood in which my mother could locate an unsaid thought from three rooms away.

He respected closed doors. Over the years, we’d become very good at leaving them closed.

The house on Milburn was dark when we arrived. The porch light came on automatically, dutiful as Paul himself. The kitchen smelled faintly of lemon cleaner, coffee grounds, and the basil plant Claire had given me.

He set his keys in the blue ceramic dish beside the door.

“I’m going to shower,” he said. “You coming up?”

“In a minute.”

“Need anything?”

“No. I’m going to find a book.”

He smiled, tired and fond. “Take your time.”

Then he kissed my hair and went upstairs.