[He moved to sit where she had indicated, turning so he could still face her. After the question, he'd asked, it was understandable that Alex would need contact. It was the sort of person that she was. After all, she was the reason he's started taking her hand and holding it. That wasn't something he'd done before, not even with Coralee. Of course, Coralee hadn't been anything like Alex.

There was something more to this, however, something that he knew she'd kept saying throughout the podcast. How Coralee would come back to him, and maybe she believed that, but Richard knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would never happen. It had been twenty years and, if he were honest, their marriage wasn't the best even without adding in the secrets that she had been keeping from him. Richard had suspected that she was having an affair with Thomas Warren, that wasn't a supposition that a man with a strong faith in his marriage would come to. No, if he thought about it logically, his and Coralee's marriage had already been cracking at the seems.]

She's not, coming back.

[The words were soft and held a bit of wistfulness to them. There was still a part of Richard that wished she would come back, that loved Coralee and would always love her, but that night in the cabin, he'd had to face facts. It was over.]

That time, Coralee and I, it's never going to be what it was. And I don't, want it to be. This,

[He finally actually looked at her, having been looking off toward a corner of the carpet since sitting down and beginning to contemplate his words.]

This is what I want.