As Christmas drew closer, I found myself paying more attention to the way Wendell spoke about the future.
He didn't make grand promises.
He didn't tell me that everything would be perfect.
Instead, he spoke about small things he hoped we might do together.
He asked what I liked to eat.
He asked whether I preferred a quiet evening or something more lively.
He listened when I told him I wasn't sure how I would feel on Christmas Eve.
I appreciated that.
I didn't want him to assume that he knew what would make me happy simply because he cared about me.
I wanted him to ask.
I wanted us to learn each other as we were, not as we imagined the other person should be.
That was something I had learned through marriage.
Love did not make two people identical.
It gave them a reason to keep trying to understand their differences.
Dwight and I had not always agreed.
We had misunderstood each other sometimes.
We had said things we wished we could take back.
But we had built a life by learning how to return to the conversation after the difficult moments passed.
I had never thought much about that while he was alive.
I had taken the ordinary work of a marriage for granted.
Now I understood how much it had mattered.
With Wendell, I was starting again.
I couldn't expect him to know everything Dwight had known.
I couldn't expect our relationship to follow the same patterns.
And I couldn't assume that because Wendell struggled with one part of intimacy, he would struggle with every part.
I needed to give him the chance to show me who he was.
At the same time, I needed to be honest about what I required.
I was learning that those two things could exist together.
I could be patient without being silent.
I could be understanding without excusing everything.
I could care for Wendell without pretending that his decisions had never hurt me.
The thought made me feel steadier.
For the first time, I wasn't waiting for Christmas Eve to decide whether my relationship was worth keeping.
I was paying attention to what happened between us before the day arrived.
That mattered more than I had realized.
If Wendell was learning to trust me, I wanted to recognize it.
If he was avoiding the conversation again, I wanted to recognize that too.
I didn't want to let one special day erase the months that had come before it.
Nor did I want the months that had come before it to prevent me from enjoying something good.
I wanted to see the whole picture.
That was harder than choosing one simple explanation.
But it was more honest.
One evening, I found myself thinking about the photographs again.
I remembered the way Wendell had looked at them before he looked at the yellow paper.
It had been a quick movement.
Still, I remembered it.
The photographs had clearly mattered to him.
I wondered what he saw when he looked at them.
Did they remind him of something he had hoped to do?
Did they make him think about the future?
Did he look at them and imagine me standing there, asking questions he wasn't ready to answer?
I couldn't know.
I was careful not to turn those questions into facts.
That had become important to me.
For months, I had filled Wendell's silence with my own fears.
Now I was trying to leave space for his actual words.
I wanted to hear them.
I wanted him to trust me enough to speak plainly.
And I wanted to be the kind of person who could listen without deciding what the answer meant before he finished giving it.
I didn't always succeed.
Sometimes I caught myself building a theory around a passing expression.
Sometimes I wanted to ask another question before the first one had been answered.
But I was learning to stop.
I could wait a little longer without pretending the question had disappeared.
I could let uncertainty exist without allowing it to take over everything else.
It was not a comfortable lesson.
It was a useful one.
I thought about the yellow paper and the two pieces of blue tape.
They were ordinary things.
Nothing expensive.
Nothing that would impress a stranger.
Yet the message they held had moved me more than I could explain.
For my Winnie.
I had spent so long wondering whether I mattered enough to be included in Wendell's private life.
Now I knew that, at least in some way, he had been thinking about me when I wasn't there.
That knowledge brought comfort.
It also brought responsibility.
I needed to tell him what his gesture had meant to me.
Not because he deserved praise for making me feel better after months of uncertainty.
Because the truth mattered on both sides.
I wanted him to know that the message had touched me.
I also wanted him to know that I still needed honesty.
I could appreciate his intentions without pretending his methods had been perfect.
That seemed like a fair thing to ask of a relationship.
I had spent too many years believing that love meant being easy to please.
I had tried to be agreeable.
I had tried not to ask for too much.
I had tried to make my needs small enough that nobody would feel burdened by them.
But a person could be easy to please and still be deeply unhappy.
I had learned that after Dwight died, when I discovered how much of my daily life had depended on having someone beside me.
I didn't want to repeat that mistake with Wendell.
I wanted to be kind.
I wanted to be patient.
I also wanted to be honest enough to say when something hurt.
If he was going to be part of my life, he needed to know the woman I actually was.
Not just the woman who smiled and changed the subject.
Not just the woman who accepted every explanation.
The woman who had questions.
The woman who missed her husband.
The woman who wanted companionship but did not want to disappear inside another person's plans.
I was learning to accept that version of myself.
It took longer than I expected.
Sometimes I still felt guilty for wanting things.
Sometimes I wondered whether I was asking for too much by expecting Wendell to explain why he had kept his home from me.
Then I remembered that I had not asked him to be perfect.
I had asked him to let me know him.
That was not an unreasonable request.
It was the foundation of the relationship I wanted.
As Christmas Eve approached, I felt the old loneliness return in small waves.
I knew the day might bring memories I couldn't control.
I knew I might miss Dwight more than I expected.
I also knew that I didn't have to spend the day proving that I was happy.
If I felt sad, I could say so.
If I wanted to laugh, I could laugh.
If I needed a quiet moment, I could take one.
I hoped Wendell would understand.
I believed he was trying to.
That belief was not certainty.
It was a choice based on what I had seen and heard.
I could make that choice without giving up my right to change my mind if the truth turned out differently.
For now, I was willing to move forward.
I wanted to see what Wendell had been preparing.
I wanted to understand why he had written those words.
And I wanted to discover whether the man who had kept me outside his home could learn to welcome me inside his life.
The yellow paper had given me a reason to hope.
It had not given me every answer.
I was beginning to understand that the answers would have to come from us, through the difficult conversations neither of us could avoid forever.
I hoped we were ready for them.
Click here to continue reading: PART 13: I Had Spent So Much Time Wondering What Wendell Was Hiding That I Almost Forgot to Notice What He Was Trying to Tell Me
I Thought the Hardest Thing About Losing My Husband Was Learning to Sleep Alone Until Another Man Made Me Question Everything
Part 12 of 20
