Date: February 28
Subject: trouble?
What is this trouble you speak of? I'm not familiar with such a thing, and I'm most certain that I never have nor ever will find myself in any of it.
Did that give you a good laugh? You're welcome.
I'll be fine. I'm running ice depth and salinity simulations all week, and then churning data after that. No trouble to be found.
Please be careful. You know, I'm laughing as I type this. Not in a funny-amusing way, but in a funny-not-funny-at-all way. For years, people have been telling me to be careful. Matt likes to joke that he's got money set aside for the eventuality that he'll be bailing me out of a Third World jail, or that I'll lose all of my fingers and toes in a close brush with lava. I always thought it was an overbearing, patronizing thing to say, as if he didn't trust me to survive on my own. Maybe that was part of it because I didn't always indicate that I could survive on my own (another funny-not-at-all-funny laugh), but it was probably more about caring so much that he actively worried about me.
I didn't think I knew how to care about people, and if I could, it wasn't enough that thoughts of them would interrupt my day. But here I am, researching Kenya and Honduras—I'm already prepared for your next DWB trip—and I'm really fucking worried. Apparently I'm capable of a whole fuck-ton of caring for others.
I hope you're happy, husband. You've done all of this to me.
* * *
To: Erin Walsh
From: Nick Acevedo
Date: March 7
Subject: yes, trouble
I am happy. It's good that you're seeing what I've known all along.
I'm not going to tell you not to worry. You've earned the right, wife.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Erin
To: Erin Walsh
From: Shannon Halsted
Date: March 9
Subject: Hello
Erin,
Thank you again for the vase. We're moving into a new house soon, and it will be perfect in the kitchen.
We found out this morning that I'm pregnant. That's crazy, right? I'm not ready for that. There's no way I can be a mother. I don't know what I'm going to do. Will's already calling it Froggie. Him and his fucking Navy SEAL humor.
Shit. It's probably bad to call a baby "it." See? I'm not ready for this.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to unload all of this on you. I wanted you to be the first to know.
Shannon
* * *
To: Shannon Halsted
From: Erin Walsh
