“Do you regret it?”
“No.”
She nodded. “I think people imagine a boundary always feels empowering. Sometimes it just feels awful. Doesn't make it the wrong one.”
I watched steam rise from my mug. “I don't want this to make me cynical.”
“Then don't spend the rest of your life trying to prove everyone is Ryan or Natalie.”
“That's easier said than done.”
“Most things worth doing are.”
In December, Oak & Stone finished Evelyn Price's bathroom, a library renovation in Bexley, and two kitchen projects that had been delayed by supply problems. Luis assumed more responsibility for daily operations, and Priya helped us build a clearer system of expense approvals. Tessa passed her first major certification exam and brought donuts for the entire crew. We celebrated in the workshop, crowded around a folding table covered with sawdust, and for the first time in months I felt pride without immediately wondering whether Ryan should have been standing beside me to share it.
One afternoon, Luis handed me a revised proposal for a house restoration project on the east side of Columbus. The building had been vacant for years, its original oak trim hidden beneath layers of paint. The owner wanted the work done carefully, not quickly. It was exactly the kind of job I'd started the company to do. I read the scope twice and signed the estimate. Luis watched me with a grin.
“There he is,” he said.
“Who?”
“The guy who remembers why he built this place.”
I smiled. It was a small moment, but it mattered. Ryan's betrayal had threatened to become the entire meaning of Oak & Stone. I was beginning to see that the company was more than the friendship that helped start it. It belonged, in the practical and human sense, to the customers who trusted us and the workers who showed up every morning ready to do good work.
Christmas came with a sharp cold snap and a layer of snow that turned the neighborhood quiet. I had expected the holiday to flatten me. Natalie had always loved Christmas more than any other time of year. She decorated our front porch the weekend after Thanksgiving, chose a tree that was invariably too tall, and played the same collection of old holiday songs while stringing lights through the railing. Our ornaments were a map of our marriage: a wooden cabin from our first trip to the Smokies, a small brass hammer from our first profitable year at Oak & Stone, a glass cardinal she'd bought after my mother died.
I found the ornament box at the back of the storage room one Saturday. For a while I sat beside it, afraid that opening the lid would release something I wasn't ready to feel. Then I carried it into the living room and sorted through it. I couldn't bear to put everything on a tree, but I hung the cardinal in the front window and the brass hammer on a small evergreen I'd bought at a nursery. The house looked different, simpler, and the change didn't feel like an act of betrayal. I was allowed to keep the parts of our traditions that still gave me comfort.