The day Adrienne left, the sky didn’t weep. Neither did I. The sun was out, the air smelled like detergent, and the only sound in the house was the hum of the fridge. I folded her favorite blue sweater—the one she used to wear when she was cold but too stubborn to say it—into a cardboard box and slid it against the wall by the door. Then I stood there a long time, staring at it, telling myself, You’ll be fine, Reed. You always are.
But that was only half true.
The real hurricane didn’t hit until Ellie came out of her room, still in her dinosaur pajamas, dragging her left foot like she always did when she was sleepy.
“Where’s Mommy?” she asked.
“She had to go,” I said, keeping my tone light.
“For how long?”
I crouched down to her level, kissed the top of her head, and said the worst thing I could think of: “I don’t know.”
She stared at me for a second, then looked down at her hands. “But who’s gonna do my nails on Sunday?”
I could’ve broken right there. But I didn’t. I hugged her, too tightly maybe, and told her we’d figure something out. That night, after she fell asleep with her favorite stuffed giraffe tucked under one arm, I drove to a 24-hour drugstore and bought a bottle of glittery pink polish that cost $2.79 and smelled like a mistake.
I’d never painted nails before. I had no idea what I was doing. But Ellie sat cross-legged on the bathroom counter the next morning and held out her tiny hand like I was the best man for the job. Like I was still someone she could count on.
And just like that, Sundays became ours.
Every week, she picked a new color. Every week, I got a little steadier with the brush. We didn’t talk about Adrienne. We talked about how awesome it would be if dinosaurs had hoop earrings. Or whether unicorns had birthdays. Sometimes we’d pretend her giraffe was a salon client and gave him little toe dots with leftover polish. It was absurd. It was sacred.
Then last Sunday, while I was blowing on her freshly painted fingers, she looked up at me with those serious hazel eyes that look just like her mom’s.
“Daddy,” she said. “If you had to pick one person to love forever, and they picked someone else, would you still keep loving them anyway?”
The air left my chest.
I froze, brush in midair, and stared at her. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t joking.
Before I could speak, she reached into the box where we kept the polishes and pulled out a new one—silver, with tiny flecks of gold. Not one of ours.
It was Essie. Adrienne’s favorite brand.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
She hesitated, bit her lip, then whispered, “Mommy gave it to me.”
I didn’t move. My mind scrambled to assemble the pieces.
“She picked me up after school on Thursday,” Ellie added. “She said it was a surprise. We got ice cream. She asked me about you. I told her you still do my nails and cook eggs with smiley faces.”
I sat back on my heels, trying to steady the pulse now thudding in my ears.
“She said… she misses us. She wanted to know if you still love her. But she told me not to tell you.” Ellie paused. “But I told her I would.”
I didn’t know whether to be furious or relieved. I’d spent six months trying to keep our life stable, trying to hold it together with duct tape and glitter, and now she’d come back—behind my back?
“Did she say anything else?” I asked.
“She said she’d pick me up again tomorrow.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept walking past the hall closet where Adrienne’s box still sat, untouched. I’d never opened it again. Never looked through the rest of her things. I didn’t need a reminder of what leaving looked like. I’d lived it.
But when morning came, I got Ellie ready for school like usual, packed her lunch with two apple slices in the shape of hearts, and walked her to the front gate. Only this time, I didn’t leave.
At 3:04 p.m., I saw her.
Adrienne stepped out of a silver Prius like she hadn’t shattered everything six months ago. She wore her old leather jacket, hair swept up in a messy bun, sunglasses too big for her face. She was scanning the crowd for one person—and it wasn’t me.
When she finally saw me, her smile faltered. She walked slower.
“Hey,” she said when she reached me.
“Hey,” I replied, calm but cold.
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know.”
She looked down at her shoes. “I wasn’t trying to go behind your back. I just… missed her. Missed you both. I didn’t know if I’d even have the right to say that out loud.”
“You didn’t at first. But you do now. Because she told me the truth.”
Adrienne nodded, biting the inside of her cheek.
“I messed up, Reed,” she said. “I was overwhelmed, lost… stupid. I thought if I ran, I’d find myself. But all I did was lose more. I lost Sundays. I lost bedtime songs. I lost you.”
I swallowed hard.
She continued. “I didn’t come here expecting anything. I just wanted to know if you’d ever… consider trying again. For real this time. No half-heartedness. No vanishing. Just us.”
I looked at her for a long time.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” I admitted.
“I’ll earn it,” she said quickly. “I’ll show up. Every day. I swear.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out something small.
It was a nail polish bottle. Not silver. Not flashy. Just a soft coral pink. The first color we ever painted Ellie’s nails with.
“She said it was your favorite,” I said quietly.
Adrienne smiled. “It was ours. I thought maybe… we could start with a Sunday.”
It wasn’t instant. It wasn’t magic. Rebuilding never is. But she meant what she said. She came over the next Sunday and sat beside me while we painted Ellie’s toes and listened to her go on about how sharks would look better with ponytails. We didn’t touch at first. We didn’t even sit that close. But we were there. We were trying.
Weeks turned into months. Therapy helped. Honesty helped more. We had hard conversations—about why she left, about the things we didn’t say, about how scared we both were. But we also had new memories. We made pancakes shaped like zoo animals. We built forts in the living room. One night, Adrienne reached over and took my hand. I didn’t pull away.
Last Sunday, Ellie picked out a polish I’d never seen before. “Mommy and I found it together,” she said, beaming.
I opened the bottle. Bright blue with tiny gold stars.
“She said it’s called Forever Maybe,” Ellie added.
I looked at Adrienne. She just smiled and shrugged. “Felt appropriate.”
I grinned. “I’ll take the ‘maybe.’ The ‘forever’ we’ll earn.”
And this time, when I painted Ellie’s nails, Adrienne took her other hand and painted the toes.
We were in sync. For the first time in a long time, it felt like a home again.
So here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes broken things stay broken. But sometimes, if you’re lucky—and willing to try—they come back stronger.
Would you give a second chance to the one who walked away?
Share this if you believe in rebuilding love. Like it if you believe in Sunday nail polish.
