She considered her soup spoon for a long moment. “He was a comet,” she said finally. “Bright. Fast. Always looking past the horizon. His father—my ex—thought he could be caged into usefulness. That’s where James learned the trick of disappearing when cornered. I should have left sooner.”
“What happened between you?”
“Pride happened.” She smiled without joy. “He wanted me to apologize for leaving his father. I wanted him to admit he was scared. We did neither.” She reached into her bag and laid a small, worn photo on the table: a boy of eight with skinned knees and a grin too big for his face, holding a papier-mâché rocket. “He made that for a science fair. Won first prize. He told the judges he was going to Mars. He believed it.”
I ran a fingertip over the photo’s soft edge. “I don’t know what to do with the parts of our life that were good,” I admitted. “It feels like treason to keep them and foolish to throw them away.”
“Keep them,” she said simply. “Good moments don’t become counterfeit because the person who shared them failed elsewhere. They’re receipts that you loved honestly.”