I took the ring pouch from my bag. I had carried it on the days when I thought I might suddenly need proof that the marriage had really existed, though I had not worn the ring since the island. The gold band lay against the velvet, bright and ordinary, an object too small to explain how much of my life had changed around it. I closed the pouch and placed it back in my bag, not ready to decide what should become of it.
I called my mother. She answered with the easy warmth that had become one of the reliable sounds of my new life. "Hi, sweetheart," she said. "How's the building?"
"Getting there," I replied. "The divorce is final."
There was a pause, then the gentle sound of her exhaling. "How do you feel?"
I looked at the ceiling where a contractor had repaired the damaged plaster, leaving a pale patch ready for its final coat of paint. "Like I've been standing in a doorway for months," I said, "and someone finally opened the door wide enough for me to walk through."
"Then you don't have to rush," she answered. "You can stand in the sunshine for a while."
Spring arrived slowly. The Reading Room opened on a Saturday with folding chairs in the courtyard, homemade lemonade and children running between the restored shelves as though the building had belonged to them all along. Marisol gave a speech thanking the volunteers, donors and contractors, and Nina pushed me toward the front when she announced our studio's name. I resisted at first, embarrassed by attention that had nothing to do with a confrontation or a wedding, then accepted the applause because it belonged to everyone who had worked there.
My mother stood in the back beneath the shade of a tree, holding a photograph of my father in her handbag. She had told me that morning she wanted him there in whatever way we could manage. When the formal program ended, she gave me the photograph and asked whether he would have liked the work. I looked at the long window seats, the repaired bookcases and the paint colors chosen to make a small room feel open rather than expensive.
"He would have asked why I used three screws where two would do," I said.
She laughed, a full bright laugh that surprised people standing nearby. Then her eyes filled, and she put her arm around my shoulders. I felt the weight of her hand, the familiar warmth of someone who had taught me that love could include disagreement without making disagreement dangerous. For a moment I thought about the man I had lost and the man I had left, and I understood how different those two kinds of grief had always been.
Children began filling the tables almost immediately. One little girl brought a book of sea creatures and asked whether she could sit beside the window, where she might see the birds outside. I told her the bench had been built for exactly that sort of question. She climbed onto it, opened her book and disappeared into the pages with the complete attention of a person who knew the room would hold her safely while she explored something else.