**Part 3**
Two weeks later, Sloan’s texts got shorter.
Old me would’ve decided she needed space and left her alone.
Instead, I called.
“Are you upset with me?”
“A little.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated.
“You left the hospital so fast. I thought maybe seeing me again was too much.”
“I’m sorry I made you wonder.”
“You don’t regret it?”
“Finding you? Never. Losing eight years with you is what I regret.”
Sloan went quiet.
Then she said, “Spencer needs his grandma, you know. He’s lucky enough to have two.”
My throat tightened.
“Does he?”
“He does if you want the job.”
“I’ve waited eight years for someone to offer me something that good.”
A few days later, I called David and told him to come to my sister’s house alone.
When he sat across from me at the kitchen table, I got straight to it.
“I’ve started counseling,” he said. “I’m trying, Mila.”
“I’m glad.”
Hope crossed his face.
“But I’m staying with my sister.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you hadn’t decided about us.”
“I haven’t. But I need space to heal without you deciding what I’m ready to hear.”
“Mila, I’m trying.”
“I know. But trying isn’t the same as understanding.”
He looked up.
“You lied because you couldn’t stand that Sloan still wanted me in her life after she stopped trusting you.”
His face tightened.
“I was scared of losing my daughter.”
“So you made sure I lost her too.”
David went quiet.
“I can’t give you those years back.”
“No. You can’t.”
I held his gaze.
“Your job now isn’t to convince me to forgive you. It’s to figure out why you needed control more than honesty.”
“And what do you do?”
“I recover. And I decide what happens next.”
By Christmas, David and I were still living apart. He stayed in counseling, while Sloan and I had spent the past few months learning how to be in each other’s lives again.
She came over carrying Spencer, and Amanda joined us later.
While I held the baby, Sloan found a crooked macaroni ornament she’d made when she was younger.
“You kept this?”
“Of course I did, honey.”
Spencer stirred in my arms.
Sloan leaned against my shoulder.
“He’s going to know you as Grandma Mila.”
My throat tightened.
“I’d like that.”
She smiled.
This time, nobody had decided for us.
We chose each other ourselves.
