to work toward a better relationship, but it would have to begin with respecting my boundaries.
She agreed.
Whether that agreement would last was something time would reveal.
After they left, I washed the dishes and walked out onto the patio.
The little rose cutting had produced its first new leaves.
The evening air smelled of damp earth and wood smoke drifting from a neighboring chimney.
Inside, my books were on the shelves exactly where I wanted them.
Paul’s photograph stood beside my favorite chair.
My cooking pans hung from hooks I had installed myself.
Nobody had moved anything without asking.
Nobody had decided that my age made my choices negotiable.
My phone rang.
It was Donna, asking whether I wanted to join her for a morning walk.
I smiled and told her I’d meet her at nine.
Before going to bed, I checked the front door.
The lock turned smoothly beneath my fingers.
I did keep one emergency spare key, with Donna, who understood that an emergency key was not an invitation to enter whenever she pleased.
I switched off the hallway light and looked around my little cottage.
The house where I had spent thirty-one years raising my family belonged to someone else now.
But my life still belonged to me.
And for the first time in a very long while, I could close my own front door knowing that nobody on the other side believed they had the right to open it.
