“It feels close.”
“I know.”
That nearly starts me crying again.
Mila rises and sits beside me instead of across from me. She keeps one arm around my shoulders and says nothing for a long time, which turns out to be exactly what I need. There’s comfort in not being pushed toward an answer I can’t survive yet. I listen to the faint sounds from elsewhere in the house and try to get hold of myself.
When she finally speaks, she does it carefully. “You can be furious with him. You can refuse to forgive him. You can throw things at his head for the next decade, and I’ll probably help you choose which objects make the strongest statement.”
That wins the smallest, wettest laugh of my life.
“But this isn’t only about him anymore.”
I go quiet.
Mila takes my hand and squeezes once. “It will hurt the baby, too.”
The room seems to narrow around that sentence.
I stare at our joined hands. “I don’t know how to face him when I want him this much and still hate him for it.”
Mila’s thumb brushes across my knuckles. “You do not need to decide everything today. You only need to understand that your child cannot pay for what he did.”
I swallow hard and nod because that’s all I have left.
Mila nudges the cup back into my hands. “Drink the tea before it gets cold.”
“That’s your grand wisdom?”
“For this minute, yes.”
I wrap both hands around the cup and stare down into it, wishing the one person I want comfort from hadn’t been the one to break me in the first place.
