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Jeremy put a hand on my lower back. Something he used to do when I needed emotional support. Just a touch to let me know he was there. It was like he knew what I was thinking. Maybe he did. Maybe he’d just had the same experience at Jodie’s house—only I hadn’t been as kind. And it was that moment that I decided to call a truce. I wanted to enjoy today. Catch up with his family.

I wanted to catch up with him. Hear about his life, reminisce about the past—the parts that didn’t hurt.

We wouldn’t walk away from tonight as friends, I definitely couldn’t handle that. But I could play nice. Maybe just for a little while.

“Finally, someone brings a woman home,” an old lady’s voice said. “It’s been a sausage fest in here.”

I looked over to see Jeremy’s four-foot-eleven probably ninety-year-old grandma inching in from the living room on a walker.

I grinned. “Bridgette!”

“In the flesh. Well, come here and give me a kiss hello.” She beckoned me with a hand wave.

I closed the gap between us and leaned down and kissed her soft cheek.

“Finally, he got the apology right,” she said.

“Grandma, you don’t even know what happened,” Jeremy said, looking at her, amused.

“I don’t need to know what happened. You’re a man, so obviously it was your fault.”

Debra gave me a polite, unblinking look.

Well, at least Bridgette hadn’t changed.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Debra said to us. “We’ve got more food than we can eat.”

“Do you need help?” Jeremy asked.

“Oh heavens no. Make her a drink and take her for a tour. There’s a charcuterie board in the living room. We’ll eat in an hour.”

“Grandma, can I get you anything?” he asked, looking at the old woman.

“You can get me a dirty martini, gin, four olives,” she said.

“You got it.”

He led me from the entry to the den, where there was a wet bar and a beautiful, classically decorated Christmas tree with vintage ornaments from the 1960s.

Every room of the house would have a tree, and they’d all be different. A frosted one for Frank’s office; an elegant, sophisticated Douglas fir with gold bulbs and cascading ribbons in the living room; a crafty tree on the landing of the stairs with all the homemade ornaments the boys made in school and popcorn garlands that the family would start stringing together at a long-standing game night in October that I’d always been invited to.

Each boy got their own small bedroom tree too. I wondered if they still did that, or if they grew out of it. Did Jeremy continue the practice on his own, out there in the world?

I remembered thinking that Jeremy and I would do that for our kids one day. I wouldn’t go as all out as his mom did, but I did like the bedroom tree.

When I’d lost Jeremy, I’d lost traditions too. Sure, I could have decided to do it anyway with whatever man I’d eventually marry. Beau would have agreed to anything I asked. But I didn’t want it without Jeremy. It wouldn’t have been the same.

I sat on one of the stools while he set some glasses out on the counter. “What can I make you?” he asked.

“Why don’t you surprise me?” I said, not letting the sad show on my face.

“Do you think any of these are still half water?” he asked, studying the side of a bottle of bourbon.

I laughed and he flashed me a gorgeous white smile. “It wasn’t just us, you know. Paulie got to it well before we did.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “The first time I tasted tequila that wasn’t eighty percent water my brain exploded.”

He cracked up.