I used to joke I’d manifested Martin—kind, attentive, the sort who brings soup when you’re sick. After a brutal breakup, he felt like sunlight.

One Tuesday, I came home early with lasagna—and found Martin in the garden, digging with his ex-wife, Janet. They were close, quiet, covered in dirt. A time capsule, they claimed. Forgotten, buried when they lived here.

But it wasn’t the box that hurt. It was the secret. The intimacy. The old version of them, unearthed without me.

I told them to bring it out back. The fire pit crackled. I tossed in their letters, their mixtape, their memories. “We can replant the garden,” I said. “But we can’t keep watering the past.”

Martin apologized, voice hoarse. “I didn’t want you to think I still cared for… all that.”

“You handled it like I didn’t matter,” I replied. “That’s the wound.”

He asked for forgiveness.

“I don’t know yet.”

Later, I watched the coals fade and thought about trust—not lost overnight, not rebuilt in one, either. Tomorrow would bring coffee, hard conversations, maybe zinnias. But tonight, I claimed my own closure.

If it were you in that driveway—what would you have done?