Mom touched my elbow.
“Jean, look around.”
I looked.
Several small plaques marked the garden plots.
Some had names.
Others had dates.
Marcus followed my gaze.
“This section belongs to a bereavement group.”
“Bereavement group?” I asked.
He nodded toward the tomatoes.
“My wife grew them every summer.”
His voice changed slightly.
“After she died, I couldn’t even look at one without thinking about her.”
He took a breath.
“When I joined the group, they told us to plant something we’d have to keep alive long enough to see another season.”
“And you chose tomatoes?”
Mom snorted.
“Arrogance. He killed two batches.”
“One and a half,” Marcus corrected.
“Two.”
Marcus sighed.
“Your mother’s very supportive.”
I looked at Mom.
“You knew about his wife?”
“Of course I knew.”
“How much?”
Mom slipped her hands into her coat pockets.
“Enough to know I would’ve liked her.”
That stopped me.
All evening, I’d thought Mom was too infatuated to see what I saw.
But she’d seen more.
Marcus stepped closer, but he left enough space between us.
I looked directly at him.
“Do you still love her?”
“Yes.”
His answer came without hesitation.
Marcus glanced toward the crooked tomato plant.
“She’s dead, Jeannie. Not erased.”
Then he looked at Mom.
“Loving your mother didn’t require me to stop loving the woman who taught me how.”
I frowned.
“What does that even mean?”
Marcus rubbed dirt from his thumb.
“You remember how I used to ask what you wanted at the bookstore?”
I nodded.
He smiled faintly.
“That wasn’t originally my wisdom.”
I stared at him.
“My wife used to get furious with me because I planned everything. Restaurants. Vacations. Weekends.”
He shook his head.
“I thought taking care of somebody meant handling things for them.”
His expression became more serious.
“One night, my wife finally said, ‘Marcus, stop loving me like a project. Ask.’”
I felt something shift inside me.
“Years later, I watched you say ‘whatever’ to every question anyone asked you.”
He looked at me.
“I recognized it.”
I thought about the blue book.
The sweater.
The tiny questions.
All those years ago, I had believed Marcus was simply teaching me to have an opinion.
Now I understood that he had learned that lesson from someone else.
Someone who had mattered deeply to him.
Someone I had been afraid Mom could never compete with.
I turned toward my mother.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Mom looked at me.
“That he still loves her?”
I nodded.
Mom thought for a moment.
“Jean, I raised you by myself for most of my adult life.”
She gave me a knowing look.
“Do you really think I’d trust a man whose answer to loss was pretending somebody never mattered?”
I looked away.
“I’m not dating the man he was before her.”
Mom’s eyes moved toward Marcus.
“I’m dating the man he became.”
Marcus cleared his throat.
“This is becoming alarmingly positive.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
Mom took my hand.
“I know why you were worried.”
“I thought I was protecting you, Mom.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
She squeezed my fingers.
