Chapter 17 - Learning Each Other
The first weeks were awkward.
Arthur didn't know what Renata liked for breakfast.
He didn't know which cartoons she watched.
He didn't know that she hated raisins.
He didn't know she collected snow globes.
He didn't know Julia still drank tea before bed.
Eleven years had created a thousand tiny distances.
So Arthur started learning.
He went to Renata's school play.
He sat in the front row.
He clapped too loudly.
Renata laughed afterward.
“You embarrassed me.”
Arthur smiled.
“I'm your grandfather. That's my job.”
Julia watched them.
Later that night, she and Arthur sat on the porch.
“You're different,” she said.
Arthur looked at her.
“I had to be.”
“Because of what happened?”
“Because I realized being powerful isn't the same as being right.”
Julia smiled.
Arthur looked at her.
“I can't give you back the years.”
“No.”
“But I can be here for the ones we have.”
Julia nodded.
“That matters.”
He reached into his pocket.
The old wallet.
The same wallet Renata had returned in the snow.
He handed it to Julia.
“I don't need this anymore.”
Julia opened it.
Inside was her old photograph.
Arthur's mother.
And one new photograph.
Arthur, Julia, and Renata.
Julia looked at him.
“You kept it.”
“Of course.”
She smiled.
For the first time, the photograph wasn't a reminder of loss.
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It was proof they had survived it.
👉 Arthur couldn't recover the eleven years he had lost, but he could finally make sure Renata never grew up wondering whether her grandfather would choose her.
