The invitation was a brief but considerate message.
"Lorna, it might be time for us to get together and discuss a co-parenting strategy. Only the two of us. For the benefit of Jason. Can we meet for dinner? neutral territory. Just clarity, no expectations. Michael.
Three times, Lorna read it again. She kept her thumb over the keyboard. Her maternal instinct told her that Michael deserved clarity and Jason needed stability. But she hesitated in another way.
She wasn't sure if she was more afraid of confronting the truth of the feelings that never really went away or of rekindling old ones.
Nevertheless, she said: "All right. Dinnertime it is.
She told Lucas later that evening.
The air between them was already tense from weeks of silent strain as he untied his tie in their bedroom.
With caution, she said, "I'm having dinner with Michael." "To talk about co-parenting."
Lucas froze. "Pardon me?"
"It's only a conversation," she hurriedly added. "We must—" he is Jason's biological father.
"You're having dinner with him by yourself?"
"Lucas, it's not a date. We ought to have discussed this five years ago. For Jason."
"You mean for you."
"Don't twist this."
"Why not? He's already twisted everything. Our lives. Our marriage."
"You mean the marriage you've been avoiding me for months? The one where I sleep in a different room while you get lost in strangers' conversations?" The words stung. Silence stretched between them like a chasm neither knew how to cross.
Lucas turned away. "Do whatever you want." That same night, Lucas found Hope's card in his wallet.
He stared at it for a long time, wrestling with guilt, anger, and a gnawing loneliness. Finally, he dialed.
She responded in a cool, collected voice.
"Hope? It's Lucas. From the school event. I… was wondering if you'd like to meet for coffee sometime." There was a brief pause, just long enough for him to think she might say no, but then:
"Sure. I'd like that." — In the meantime, Lorna was waiting outside the bistro where she was meant to meet Michael, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest.
He was already seated, waiting, wearing a sharp shirt, his expression unreadable, but there was something softer in his eyes now, something open. She entered, her heels clicking softly against the polished floor, and they smiled—polite, hesitant, and a little sad.
The time had come.
Time to face the past.
Time to begin safeguarding the future.
even if it meant that a change was about to happen.