“It will take twenty.”
He was right.
Lauren and I learned a phrase that saved us both considerable irritation.
“Do you want the long version?”
Sometimes she said yes.
Sometimes she said, “Absolutely not.”
We both got better at laughing.
I did not become less myself. She did not become more like me.
We simply stopped treating every difference as a verdict.
The next December, Scott called three weeks before Christmas.
“We’d like you to come,” he said.
I was quiet.
He rushed on. “Lauren’s parents will be here too. Sophie wants to make dessert. No pressure. If you’d rather do something else, I understand.”
I looked at the cedar-and-pine candle on my kitchen counter. I had bought another one without realizing it was the same scent.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll come for dinner.”
Not breakfast.
Not the whole day.
Dinner felt right.
On Christmas afternoon, I drove through light rain to their house with a pie on the passenger seat and gifts in the back.
When Scott opened the door, the ceramic snowman was still on the entryway table.
Sophie had added a tiny knitted scarf around its neck.
“Grandma!” she called from the kitchen.
Lauren came around the corner wiping her hands on a dish towel.
For one brief second, all three of us stood in almost the same places we had occupied a year earlier.
I noticed it.
I think they did too.
Then Lauren smiled.
“Before you say anything, the pie is probably underbaked.”
I looked at the pie.
“Do you want the long version?”
She pointed a warning finger at me.
“No.”
Scott laughed first.