Our parents' reaction to Vera's return, once the initial disbelief and joy settled into the practical work of actually rebuilding a relationship after ten years of profound, if unknowing, separation, required its own considerable adjustment, complicated by grief that had, in some ways, never fully resolved given the closed casket and lingering uncertainty they'd apparently also carried, even while consciously believing they'd fully accepted her death.
Chapter Twelve — Rebuilding Our Bond
Vera and I have spent the following months working, carefully and patiently, to rebuild the specific, wordless closeness that had once defined our relationship, understanding that ten years of separate, entirely disconnected experience had genuinely changed both of us in ways that couldn't simply be erased by the joy of reunion alone.
The process has required, in its own way, an entirely new kind of relationship-building — getting to know each other as the specific people we'd each separately become, rather than simply assuming the automatic, effortless understanding that had once defined our twin bond could instantly resume exactly where it had been interrupted. I've found, gradually, that this new process of rediscovery carries its own genuine, considerable joy, distinct from but not lesser than the easy closeness we'd once shared before that highway accident so completely, if temporarily, separated us.
