“What?”
“I don’t only worry about this going wrong for me.”
I waited.
“I worry about Sophie.”
That was the correct answer.
It was also the one I had been afraid to hear.
“She’s attached to me.”
“She is.”
“And if we do this badly, she doesn’t just lose your girlfriend.”
“No.”
“She loses another person.”
“Yes.”
Laurel swallowed.
“I don’t know if I’m brave enough for that responsibility.”
I looked at her.
“That is exactly why I trust you with it.”
Her eyes filled.
“You’re supposed to reassure me.”
“I am.”
“That did not feel reassuring.”
“It’s the truth.”
She laughed softly.
Then Laurel leaned toward me.
The kiss was gentle and unhurried.
When we pulled apart, she kept her forehead against mine.
“You took a long time.”
“I was respecting the recovery process.”
She laughed so suddenly that I had to kiss her again.
By the beginning of summer, Laurel returned to the office three days a week.
Her first full day exhausted her more than she admitted.
When Sophie and I arrived with dinner, Laurel was asleep on the couch with her laptop open and one shoe on.
Sophie whispered, “Should we wake her?”
“No.”
“She’ll be hungry.”
“We’ll put dinner in the refrigerator.”
Sophie looked at the blanket folded over the chair.
I nodded.
Together, we covered Laurel without waking her.
Twenty minutes later, she opened her eyes.
“You should have woken me.”
“You needed sleep.”
“I also needed dinner.”
“It’s in the refrigerator.”
Laurel looked at the blanket.
“Who did this?”
Sophie pointed at me.
“He did the top half.”
“I did the difficult section.”
“You put a blanket on someone.”
“Exactly.”
Laurel laughed.
Then she looked around.
“You didn’t try to fix anything while I was asleep?”
“The cabinet hinge is still bothering me.”
“Graham.”
“I left it alone.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“For now.”
Her cane remained near the front door for several more months.
Some days she forgot it.
Other days, pain reminded her that healing did not follow a straight line.
My shoulder recovered faster once I stopped treating every medical instruction as a suggestion.
I returned to job sites gradually.
My business partner made a point of assigning someone else whenever heavy lifting was required.
At home, Sophie also became slightly less convinced her father was indestructible.