I told him it had never been a debt. It was a Tuesday. The following week, I sat beside him on the drive to Louisville and waited with Carolyn while Dalton slept in a chair. We watched the light slowly move across her blanket and talked about Millbrook, remembering the place as if it had somehow been kind to both of us. There was no competition left between us, only two women who had loved the same man in completely different ways.

Carolyn died that spring with both of us beside her. Nothing needed to be said at the end because everything important had already been spoken. The marriage was quietly undone, almost as gently as paper can be separated, and I carried the certified copy home and kept it. Months passed. One evening, Dalton signed my grocery list again: tags, oil change, love you, Josie-girl. I stood at the counter reading those ordinary words. For years, I had wondered whether his love was something I had earned, something another woman had threatened, or something I could lose. But standing there with that little list in my hands, I finally understood. Love had never been a debt between us. It was simply the choice to keep showing up, one Tuesday at a time.