I raised my fiancé’s ten children after he walked out on us — thirty years later, his lawyer showed up at my door and said, “He asked me to give you this envelope today.”

my shoulders from behind.

“He trusted you with us,” Tom, one of the 10, said.

I looked around the table at every face I loved.

“I forgive him,” I said quietly, shedding a tear for the man I loved, who’d died alone. “Because I’m 62 and too old to keep carrying anger.”

Then I lifted my teacup.

My children lifted theirs.

“To Robert,” I said.