Maren was silent for a long moment, the only sound being the drip of the faucet.

“You don’t have to live in a fixer-upper to prove something to us, Adrian,” she said softly.

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I said, turning to face her. “I just want a place where the kids can have their own rooms when they stay with me.”

She looked at me, her green eyes searching my face for any sign of the old, arrogant Adrian.

“They would like that,” she said finally, her voice barely audible.

“And you?” I asked. “Would you like that?”

“I want what is best for them,” she said. “And they need their father.”

It wasn’t a confession of love, and it wasn’t an invitation to move back into her bedroom.

But it was a beginning.

The next month, I bought the Henderson house.

It was a drafty, two-story colonial with peeling white paint and a porch that looked out over the cold Atlantic.

Every weekend, I drove up from Boston with tools and supplies.

I learned how to sand floors, how to replace rotted deck boards, and how to fix a leaky pipe.