Then she smiled.
“Are you mad at me?”
“I’ll put it on the calendar for Thursday.”
She pointed her paint roller at me.
“Not the shared calendar.”
We both laughed.
Weeks later, I found an envelope in the mailbox.
From Vanessa.
Inside was a short handwritten letter.
She apologized for entering my house.
She did not blame Mark for everything.
She admitted she had personally carried furniture inside.
She said that even if Mark lied to her, she still had responsibility for what she had done.
There was also a cashier’s check.
$350.
Exactly the estimated drywall repair.
I never became her friend.
I didn’t call to comfort her.
But I respected the apology.
And eventually, I stopped wondering whether she stayed married to Mark.
His marriage was no longer my responsibility.
By Thanksgiving, the house finally felt lived in.
Rachel came from Kentucky.
Emily decorated the refrigerator with an awful glitter-covered turkey magnet.
Diane came for dessert.
Mark was not invited.
Nobody debated it.
Nobody whispered about him.
We ate too much.
Argued about the thermostat.
Lost Diane’s glasses for fifteen minutes before discovering them on top of her head.
It was wonderfully ordinary.
Then Diane gave me a hostess gift.
I opened it.
A little wooden sign.
Home Sweet Home.
I stared at her.
She whispered,
“Too soon?”
Then she started laughing.
So did I.
I hung it in the laundry room.
Not because I suddenly loved decorative signs.
Because the first time those words appeared in my house, somebody else had put them there without permission.
This time, I chose where the nail went.
