I bought my parents a $650,000 cottage by the ocean for their fortieth anniversary because I wanted them to finally know what peace felt like.

I answered before I could stop myself. “Maybe that’s where rebuilding has to start.”

My mother did not like that sentence, but she didn’t argue.

Claire came back again a month later, and then again. Always alone. Always after calling first. She did not stay long. Sometimes she brought groceries. Once she brought my mother three packets of heirloom tomato seeds because she remembered the names of the varieties Mom liked. Another time she brought my father a used marine weather guide and said she thought he might enjoy it. Little things. Not repayment. Nothing could repay that porch. But little acts that suggested she had finally understood love is not measured by what you feel entitled to, but by what you are willing not to take.

Her marriage to Daniel ended officially six months after the lockout.