The faint smile that accompanies the words looks genuine, though still cautious. Our conversations have carried that same careful tone since the night everything unraveled, both of us navigating the narrow space between who we were before and who we might still become.
“I thought you might still be sleeping,” she continues, lifting her mug toward her lips.
“The baby seems determined to rewrite my schedule.”
The corner of her mouth lifts faintly. “That’s one way to look at it.”
We sit there in comfortable quiet while the sunlight floats slowly across the kitchen floor. For years, mornings like this would have been impossible. Our lives revolved around hospital schedules, overnight shifts, emergency calls that pulled us out of bed before sunrise and into fluorescent-lit trauma rooms before most people had finished their first cup of coffee.
Stillness rarely existed. Now it feels almost strange.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
Lila rolls one shoulder gently before answering. “Like someone punched a hole through me.”
“Technically accurate.”
She exhales through a small laugh. “The doctor humor remains strong.”
“It’s a coping mechanism.”
Her eyes move briefly toward the snow outside before returning to me.
“I hate sitting around like this,” she admits. “The hospital probably looks like a war zone right now and we’re hiding in a mansion.”
“Hiding implies we had a choice.”
“That’s fair.” She takes another sip of coffee.
The silence feels different now than it once did. Years of friendship built an easy familiarity between us. Now the pauses feel more significant, each of us choosing our words carefully as we try to make sense of the past few weeks.
I study her before speaking again. “Have you heard anything else about Ivan?”
The question emerges gently—curiosity rather than accusation.
Lila’s fingers pause around the mug. Her eyes slide toward the counter for a moment before returning to me.
“No,” she says quietly. “I’ve been thinking about it though,” she adds after a brief pause.
“About him?”
“About how much I didn’t see.” Her voice has a hint of frustration that mirrors the thoughts I know have been circling in her mind since the night everything fell apart.
I lean back in the chair. “What do you remember?”
Lila exhales slowly. “He talked about work sometimes. Security jobs. Consulting contracts. Things like that.”
“Anything unusual?”
She chews on her lip while considering the question. “Not exactly. But there was one thing.”
I wait for her to continue.
“He used to mention someone,” she says cautiously, as though she’s still sorting through the memory.
“Someone?”
“The way he talked about him felt strange.” Lila taps her finger lightly against the side of the mug. “Older man. I never met him.”
