"I'm not worried about you doing something wrong," I said finally. "I'm remembering what it felt like to ask a reasonable question and have it turned into proof that I was unreasonable. I don't want to do that to you."
Nora listened. She told me the colleague's name, the work they were doing, and the schedule she expected, not as a performance of innocence but because there was no reason to make ordinary facts mysterious. Then she asked what would help me handle the old fear without making it her responsibility to anticipate every memory I might have.
I told her I would keep working on it in therapy and that I appreciated being able to say something uncomfortable without starting a fight. She nodded and said the same was true for her. It wasn't romantic in the way films taught people to expect romance. It was better. We were giving each other a chance to know what was actually happening inside our separate heads.
Oliver needed more time. He was polite to me, sometimes funny, and occasionally distant without explanation. Nora never asked him to treat me like family, and I never tried to win him over with expensive gifts or the kind of attention that comes with invisible obligations. I helped him assemble a display stand for the shop because he asked, not because I thought a successful project would earn me a place in his life.
One afternoon he found me adjusting a hinge on the stand and asked how I knew which measurements would work. I showed him how to mark the centerline and check the angle before drilling. He watched, tried it himself, and corrected his first mistake without being embarrassed. Then he asked whether I'd always known how to build things.
"Not even close," I said. "The first bookshelf I made collapsed under six books. Malik still has a photograph of it, unfortunately."
Oliver laughed. A little later he asked whether Nora and I planned to get married. I told him no such plan existed, and that if the future changed, his mother would tell him before other people did. He seemed satisfied with that answer, though he made me promise the bookshelf photograph could be shown at some point.
By the next autumn, Nora's divorce was final and the family had settled into a new routine. Oliver divided his time between his parents according to an arrangement he understood and could discuss without fear of hurting either one. Colin was more reliable about pickups and school events than he had been during the first terrible months. Nora said she was glad of that improvement, and I meant it when I agreed.