Chapter 16: Justin and Mara

They did not name it for a long time. This was deliberate on both their parts, or rather: not deliberate, but a shared instinct that naming it would change it in ways that might not be right given what was already true. She had told him she couldn't promise him anything else. He had accepted this without pushing. The acceptance held. What they had was the dinner table and the garden and the morning coffees and the evenings on the back porch that Justin had rebuilt. They had the conversations that came from two people working alongside each other and paying attention and being honest about what they noticed. They had the specific quality of presence that came from both of them understanding, without stating, that time was the variable and that making it count was the only available strategy. On a September evening Theo went back to his house early and they were alone on the porch and the garden was doing what gardens did in September: settling into the end of the growing season with a satisfied quality, spent and full simultaneously. 'I want to say something,' Mara said. 'Okay.' 'I spent ten years choosing the wrong thing.' She looked at the garden. 'I left because I thought the work was the most important thing. And the work mattered. But I was wrong about the work being the most important thing. The most important things are—' She stopped. 'This,' she said. 'The porch and the garden and Theo and you.' He was quiet. 'The ten years,' he said. 'I spent them in the space you left. Not waiting for you — I wasn't waiting. But not— not fully in anything, either.' 'I'm sorry for that.' 'Don't be sorry,' he said. 'We're here now.' She looked at him. 'We're here now,' she agreed. The evening was warm and the garden was beautiful and they were both exactly where they were, which was the thing that could not be argued with or planned, only received.