“You were adorable,” Eleanor said.
“I was seven.”
“You were still adorable.”
“I don’t think I had a choice.”
I smiled as I entered the room.
Eleanor immediately looked at me.
“Bianca, tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That he was a difficult child.”
Tristan sighed.
“Mother.”
“What? It’s true.”
I looked at him.
“Were you?”
He considered the question seriously.
“Probably.”
“Definitely,” Eleanor said.
I laughed.
Tristan looked at me.
And for a moment, neither of us said anything.
There was something quietly comforting about those moments.
Small moments.
The kind that weren’t supposed to matter.
But somehow did.
—
A week after Eleanor’s surgery, I found myself in the hospital cafeteria during my lunch break.
I was staring at a cup of coffee that had gone cold when someone placed a fresh cup beside it.
I looked up.
Tristan.
“You look like you need that more than I do.”
