Chapter 18 - The Thursday Table
Years continued moving.
Not dramatically.
Faithfully.
Mrs. Alvarez eventually retired.
She lasted four days before returning as a volunteer.
Nobody was surprised.
Elena remarried a kind schoolteacher named David.
Roman gave a speech at the wedding and embarrassed Renley with stories about her teenage stubbornness.
Samuel became a grandfather.
Miles's daughters went to college.
Jonah and Daniel started a legitimate security company specializing in nonprofit organizations and shelters.
Mara died peacefully at eighty-seven.
Her funeral was full.
Roman sat in the front row and thought about how different a full funeral felt from Walter's quiet death.
Loss still hurt.
But nobody wondered whether Mara had mattered.
She had made sure people knew.
Renley became Dr. Renley Hart after completing her clinical doctorate.
Roman insisted on calling her Doctor for six straight months.
She threatened to block his number.
Thursday Table expanded into three states.
Yet every year, on the anniversary of Walter's death, Renley returned to the original kitchen.
Roman came too.
They made soup.
Always soup.
Always bread.
No formal memorial.
Just dinner.
One year, an elderly woman named Clara sat in Walter's chair.
She had lost her husband.
Her children lived across the country.
“I almost didn't come,” she told Renley.
“Why?”
“Didn't want to seem pathetic.”
Renley sat beside her.
“Being lonely isn't pathetic.”
Clara cried.
Roman brought bread.
She looked at his tattoos.
“You work here?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you do?”
Renley answered before he could.
“He's terrible at shelves.”
Clara laughed.
Roman sighed.
The story of his criminal past had faded from public attention.
Younger volunteers sometimes didn't recognize his name.
Roman liked that.
He wanted to be forgotten for the right reasons.
One evening, Renley arrived with news.
“I bought a house.”
Roman looked up.
“Where?”
“Three blocks from Mom.”
“Good.”
“There is something else.”
Roman waited.
She smiled.
“I'm getting married.”
Roman froze.
Renley laughed.
“You look like someone died.”
“Who?”
“His name is Caleb.”
“Background check.”
“No.”
“Basic one.”
“No.”
“Credit report?”
“Roman.”
He raised his hands.
“I've changed, not become useless.”
Caleb was a pediatric nurse.
Kind.
Patient.
Unimpressed by Roman.
Roman hated how much he liked him.
The wedding took place in the garden behind the old mansion.
The gates remained open.
Renley asked Roman to walk beside her mother during the ceremony.
Not replace anyone.
Not become Walter.
Just belong.
Before they walked outside, Renley stopped at the entrance.
“This is where we met.”
Roman nodded.
“You were terrifying.”
“You entered private property.”
“I had soup.”
“You had no survival instinct.”
She smiled.
“You cried.”
Roman looked offended.
“I had dust in my eye.”
“Both eyes?”
“Large dust.”
They laughed.
Then Renley became serious.
“Thank you.”
Roman shook his head.
“For what?”
“Opening the gate.”
He looked at her.
“You opened mine first.”
Elena joined them.
The music began.
They walked outside together.
Roman saw rows of people whose lives had crossed because of one strange delivery.
Mrs. Alvarez.
Samuel.
Miles.
Jonah.
Daniel.
Residents from the mansion.
Volunteers.
Seniors.
Families.
People who otherwise never would have known one another.
Walter wasn't there.
But his absence had stopped feeling empty.
It had become space filled by what followed.
After the ceremony, Roman sat at the edge of the garden.
Caleb joined him.
“You okay?”
Roman nodded.
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
Roman smiled.
Caleb looked toward Renley dancing.
“She talks about Walter a lot.”
“He loved her.”
“You think so?”
Roman looked toward the open mansion door.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she reminded him who he wanted his son to become.”
Caleb nodded.
“And did it work?”
Roman watched Renley laugh.
“Yes.”
Then he corrected himself.
“No.”
Caleb looked confused.
Roman smiled.
“She didn't turn me into someone else.”
“She made it impossible to keep lying about who I was.”
That was different.
That was everything.
Late that night, Renley placed her wedding bouquet beside Walter's framed receipt.
Then she whispered:
“You would've liked him.”
Roman heard but pretended not to.
May you like
Some conversations belonged to the dead and the living alone.
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