Love the one you're with

one year and one day later…

It is Louisa's first birthday. I am boarding a plane at LaGuardia, bound for the elaborate party Margot is throwing for her daughter. I make the trip often, sometimes alone, sometimes with Andy, as we shuttle back and forth between our home in Buckhead and our one-bedroom apartment in the Village. Our living arrangement seems to puzzle many, particularly Stella, who just asked the other day how I decide what shoes to keep in which closet-or do I simply buy two pairs of everything? I smiled, thinking that I will never understand her obsession with shoes-just as she doesn't understand how Andy and I can be so happy with our messy compromise. It's not perfect, but it works for us, for now.

I still prefer the city-and feel most like myself there. I love working alongside Sabina, Julian, and Oscar in the old, drafty loft-and waiting for Andy or Suzanne to join me on the weekends. But I've begun to really appreciate Atlanta, too, tolerating the crowd I once disdained and making my own friends, independent of the Grahams. I've also discovered a surprising professional niche in our new town, doing child portraiture. It began with Louisa, quickly expanding to more. It's not glamorous work, but the quiet focus on family is satisfying, and I can almost envision a time when it might fulfill me completely.

Then again, maybe that will never happen. Maybe Andy and I will always have to work to find the right balance-within our family, our marriage, our lives. Yes, I am Andy's wife. And I'm a Graham. But I'm also Suzanne's sister, my mother's daughter, my own person.

As for Margot, things remained chilly between us for a long while, both of us stubbornly pretending that there was no rift-which only made the rift seem bigger, more insurmountable. Until finally one day, she came to me and asked if we could talk.

I nodded, watching her struggle for the right words as she swaddled a whimpering Louisa.

"Maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved the way I did," she started nervously. "I was just so scared, Ellen… and so surprised by… the disloyalty of it all."

I felt a wave of guilt, remembering everything, knowing she was right-I was disloyal. But I still looked into her eyes and held my ground.

"I know how you must have felt," I said, conjuring how I feel whenever Suzanne is hurt by Vince, by anyone. "Andy's your brother… But what about our loyalty to each other? What about our friendship?"

She looked down, running her finger across Louisa's smooth, round cheek, as I found the courage to tell her the simple truth.

"I needed to go," I said. "I had to go."

I waited for her to meet my gaze, and when she did, I could see in her eyes that something had clicked, and she finally understood that my feelings for Leo had nothing to do with her brother, nothing to do with our friendship.

She rocked the baby gently and said, "I'm sorry, Ellen."

I nodded as she continued. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you he came back. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you…"

"I'm sorry, too," I said. "I really am."

Then we both cried for a long time, right along with Louisa, until we finally had no choice but to laugh. It was a moment only best friends or sisters could share.

I close my eyes now, as the plane gathers speed on the runway, and we ascend into the sky. I no longer fear flying-at least not in the way I used to-but my heart still races, the old stirrings of anxiety commingling with memories of the past. It is the only time I really think of Leo anymore. Perhaps because of that red-eye flight we shared. Perhaps because I can practically look down and see his building from my window, the spot where I last saw him a year and a day ago.

I have not spoken to him in that long. Not to return his two calls. Not even when I sent him the photos from Coney Island, including the one I took of him on the beach. There were things I considered saying in an enclosed note. Thank you… I'm sorry… I'll always love you.

They were all true-and still are-but were better left unsaid, just as I decided never to confess to Andy how close I came to losing everything. Instead, I hold that day deep within myself, as a reminder that love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together.