Just dinner again the following week. Then again after that.
By the fourth dinner, they'd stopped meeting only at restaurants. Sometimes he came over after the twins were asleep, and they just talked on the porch. Sometimes she came by his new house, curious, cautious. Testing how it felt to imagine a future there. Neither of them rushed to name what was happening between them. It simply kept happening anyway, one ordinary evening at a time.
Somewhere in that slow, ordinary stretch of months, something quietly rebuilt itself. Not the marriage they'd had before. Something steadier. Something that didn't depend on anyone else's silence to survive.
Two years after the day on that gravel shoulder, Everett proposed again. Properly this time. In the same kitchen where everything had once fallen apart.
He didn't hire a photographer or rent out a restaurant. He simply cooked dinner, badly, the same way he always did. He set two extra places for Caleb and Jonah. After the boys were fed and playing on the floor, he got down on one knee. Right there on the worn kitchen tile. "I know this kitchen has seen the worst night of both our lives," he said. "I'd like it to see one of the best, too, if you'll let it." Naomi didn't answer right away. She looked at Caleb and Jonah playing on the floor. Then back at him.
