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.
On Christmas Eve, I visited Dad and helped him prepare the meal. He had written a grocery list in the shaky handwriting that still embarrassed him, and I spent an hour chopping vegetables while he supervised from a stool. We talked about the company, the weather, and an old television program he insisted had been better before they replaced its host. Just before dinner, he asked whether I'd heard from Natalie.
“She sent a card,” I said. “To both of us, I think. It was addressed here.”
“Did you open it?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“That she hopes you're doing well and that she's sorry things ended the way they did.”
Dad looked at me. “They haven't ended yet, legally.”
“No.”