Now he was leaving again.
But this time, I wasn’t crying because he was gone.
Later that evening, Linda returned carrying a grocery bag filled with cheese, crackers, sparkling cider, and a small cake covered in pink frosting.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
She placed the cake on my kitchen counter.
“You finally got your porch back.”
We ate cake for dinner beneath my newly painted blue cabinets.
Halfway through dessert, I started crying.
Not because I wanted Gary back.
But because, after twenty-two years of putting someone else’s happiness before my own, I’d finally chosen myself.
And for the first time in a very long time, my home felt entirely like mine.
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