Chapter 5 - Grant Remembered Their First Real Meeting
Grant first believed he met Camille five months after Olivia’s death.
It happened at a rehabilitation fundraiser.
Not Grant’s rehabilitation.
He had not yet been injured.
The event raised money for adaptive sports programs.
Grant attended because his family foundation sponsored a wing of the organization.
Camille approached him near the reception desk.
She did not act starstruck.
That mattered.
Most strangers who recognized Grant came in too strong.
Camille was restrained.
Warm.
She said:
“You look like somebody who wants to leave.”
Grant laughed.
So did she.
Conversation became dinner.
Dinner became coffee.
Coffee became long late-night conversations during the hardest period of Grant’s grief.
Camille seemed uniquely comfortable hearing him talk about Olivia.
She never displayed jealousy.
Never asked him to take down photographs.
Never said:
Move on.
Instead:
Tell me another story about her.
Grant had thought that was kindness.
Now Hannah offered another interpretation.
“She already knew the stories.”
Grant rejected that instinctively.
Not all of them.
Nobody could.
But perhaps enough.
Enough to know when to ask.
Enough to guide him toward memories that made Camille appear emotionally intuitive.
Then came Maisie.
Camille seemed natural with her.
Not perfect.
But attentive.
She knew Olivia used to hum an old folk song while pregnant.
Grant once heard Camille humming it over the crib.
He asked how she knew it.
Camille said Rosa taught her.
Rosa had not.
Another tiny lie.
Why?
Because saying:
Your dead wife used to sing this and I remember,
would expose the connection.
Grant’s grief had made him vulnerable not because grief made him foolish.
Because he desperately wanted continuity.
Camille offered it.
A woman who did not resent Olivia.
A woman who somehow seemed to fit around the memories already in the house.
He thought he had found someone unusually generous.
May you like
What if Camille’s generosity came partly from studying the shape of the vacancy before stepping into it?
That question hurt more than anger.
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