Chapter 10 - The Question Thomas Never Asked
Thomas and I dated for four years before he proposed.
Except technically, he didn't propose.
We were making breakfast.
He burned toast.
I opened a window.
He said:
“Would you ever want to get married again?”
I froze.
He immediately added:
“That is a question, not a proposal.”
I laughed.
“Good clarification.”
We sat.
“Do you?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe me or maybe marriage?”
“Marriage.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
Then he did something Grant never would have done.
He changed the subject.
No pressure.
No campaign.
No strategic flowers.
No Eleanor.
Six months later, I brought it up.
“I think I want to marry you.”
Thomas looked over his glasses.
“That sounds dangerously like a proposal.”
“Don't ruin it.”
He smiled.
“I think I want to marry you too.”
“Very romantic.”
“We're old.”
“We're fifty.”
“Ancient.”
I threw a pillow.
We married at the lake house.
Twenty-seven guests.
Naomi officiated.
Thomas's daughters stood with him.
Eleanor attended.
Grant did not.
Not because he was bitter.
Because he wrote:
That day should belong entirely to the life you're choosing now. I wish you both happiness.
I appreciated that more than his presence.
Our marriage was ordinary.
Beautifully ordinary.
Bills.
Work.
Laundry.
Arguments about thermostat settings.
Thomas snored.
I left cabinet doors open.
Neither of us weaponized it.
One evening, years later, he found me looking at the old wedding photograph of Grant and me.
He sat beside me.
“Good day?”
“Yes.”
He didn't ask why I kept it.
Didn't ask whether I still loved Grant.
Didn't need reassurance.
I said:
“I did love him.”
“I know.”
“Part of me probably always will.”
Thomas nodded.
“I know.”
“That doesn't bother you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because love isn't a reservation system.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“You don't have limited seating.”
“That's terrible.”
“I teach history, not poetry.”
He kissed my forehead.
Grant built a new life too.
He never regained Mercer-level wealth.
That was good.
He became a consultant helping companies create ethics and compliance programs.
The irony was obvious.
He addressed it openly.
“I know exactly what bad controls look like because I helped bypass them.”
Some companies refused to hire him.
Others believed his experience had value.
He accepted both reactions.
He and Eleanor rebuilt their relationship carefully.
Not as emperor and heir.
Mother and adult son.
Harder.
Healthier.
Then Eleanor became ill.
Cancer.
Aggressive.
Grant called me.
Not to ask me to care for her.
That distinction mattered.
“She wants to see you.”
I went.
Eleanor was in a private hospital room.
Still particular about pillows.
Some things survived personal growth.
She looked at me.
“Mara.”
“Hi.”
“You married the professor.”
“Yes.”
“Terrible ties.”
“Awful.”
She smiled.
Then grew serious.
“I want to ask something.”
“What?”
“Do you forgive me?”
There it was.
I sat.
“I forgave parts.”
She nodded.
“Which parts?”
“The ignorance.”
Tears formed.
“The things you repeated because they were done to you.”
She waited.
“What don't you forgive?”
“The choices you knew were cruel while you were making them.”
She closed her eyes.
Fair.
“I can live with that.”
I squeezed her hand.
“You don't need complete forgiveness to die loved.”
She cried.
So did I.
“I do love you,” I said.
That surprised both of us.
Not like a mother.
Not exactly.
But love had grown in the ruins.
“I love you too.”
She died three weeks later.
Her will surprised everyone.
Most remaining money went to literacy programs and organizations supporting women returning to the workforce.
She left Grant personal items.
To me, she left one thing.
A white envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Me in the green dress at the Blackwood gala.
On the back, Eleanor had written:
This suited you better.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Then found a second line.
I am sorry it took me so long to understand that a woman can belong to a family without standing beneath anyone in it.
I framed the photograph.
Not because Eleanor had redeemed everything.
Because change deserved to be remembered too.
Years later, Thomas asked:
“Do you ever wish none of it happened?”
I thought about Grant.
The fraud.
The uniform.
Blackwood.
The raid.
The divorce.
“Of course.”
Then:
“But I don't wish away the woman I became afterward.”
Thomas nodded.
“That makes sense.”
I looked at him.
“You're supposed to say something profound.”
“I'm eating cereal.”
Fair.
We sat at the kitchen table.
Sunlight crossed the floor.
No servants.
No chandeliers.
No political donors.
Just cereal.
Coffee.
A man I loved.
May you like
And an ordinary morning nobody had to perform for.
It was everything Blackwood House had never been.
