The paintings I’d finished.
The quiet mornings when I woke without fear.
“Yes,” I said.
Damien smiled.
“Good.”
I looked at him.
“Are you?”
He considered that.
“I’m learning how to be.”
I leaned against his shoulder.
For a while, we watched the water.
Then I whispered, “I used to think being loved meant making sure the other person was never upset with you.”
Damien turned toward me.
“And now?”
I smiled.
“Now I think love means being able to tell the truth without being afraid.”
He squeezed my hand gently.
“I agree.”
A year after the divorce, I held my first solo art exhibition.
The gallery was small, but every painting on the walls represented something important to me.
One showed the apartment where Jasmine had taken me in.
Another showed the lake at sunrise.
A third depicted a hallway with a single open door at the end.
I called that painting The Choice.
