.
For the rest of the week, David and I explored Malta together. We took a ferry to Gozo, visited ancient temples, laughed over meals, and watched sunsets by the harbor. We spoke about grief and discovered that losing someone we loved did not mean we had to stop living. By the end of the week, something unexpected had happened: we had begun to care deeply for each other.
On our final evening, David took me to a beautiful restaurant overlooking the harbor. The waiter greeted him warmly, saying, “So nice to see you again, Mr. Bennett.” I immediately wondered why David had told me it was his first visit. Later, I overheard him on the phone saying, “Rosie, she doesn’t know. I’m going to tell her tonight. She deserves to know the truth.”
When David returned, I confronted him. He admitted he had not been completely honest. Rosie, he explained, was his twenty-eight-year-old daughter. She had sent him to Malta because she worried that, after Moira’s death, he had stopped living. She had asked him the same question Clara had asked me: “When was the last time you did something just because it made you happy?”
Rosie had been calling David every day, asking about me and encouraging him to tell me the truth. David said he had hoped this trip might lead to something more. Then he asked whether I would be willing to continue seeing him after we returned home. I realized I wasn’t angry. I had discovered that grief and happiness could exist together.
That night, I called Clara. She immediately noticed something had changed in my voice. “What happened?” she asked. I smiled and said, “I said yes to things.” I had traveled alone, met a stranger, laughed again, and opened my heart without betraying the love I had shared with Robert. The week in Malta was ending, but my yes was not. For the first time in years, I was ready to see what life might bring.
