You absolutely can take credit. She said he came that way because you kept showing up for him every morning through everything. She looked at him. That's not nothing, Marcus. That's everything.
He held that. Today was good. He said, "Today was really good. " She agreed. A pause. Not awkward.
The kind that comes when something is being said beneath the words and both people know it, but neither is quite ready to name it yet. I want want to tell you something, Clare said. Okay. She looked at him directly. 3 weeks ago, my grandmother called me again.
Not about you, about herself. She paused. She told me she'd been thinking about what I said in the restaurant, about feeling managed instead of loved. She pressed her mouth together briefly. She said she didn't have an argument against it.
She said she'd been trying to think of one and she couldn't. Marcus was quiet. She apologized. Clare said not in the big dramatic way it was very viven, very controlled. She said, "I handled things badly. " And then she moved on to something else before I could respond.
A breath. But she said it. And for her that's her voice softened. That's enormous. That cost her something real.
How did you respond? Marcus asked. I said, I know you love me. Clare looked at him. Because I do know that.
I just needed her to understand that love isn't the same as control. A pause. She said, "I'm learning that. " She shook her head slightly. 70 years old and learning that people can. Marcus said.
"Yeah," she held his gaze. "They can. " Another pause. "This one longer. " Then Clare said quietly. "I'm not the same person I was in that restaurant. " "Neither am I. " Marcus said, "I know. " She looked at him. "I watch you what you've built in 40some days at that building.
What you've done for Patricia for the tenants just the way you show up every day and do the real work without needing anyone to see it. She stopped. You've always been that person, but now you have the space to be it where it matters. Marcus looked at her. You gave me that space.