“You’re making the face.”
“What face?”
“The ‘I told you so’ face.”
“I don’t have an ‘I told you so’ face.” She picked her coffee back up. “But if I did, I’d be making it right now.”
In the car on the drive home, I waited until we were on the highway. The city was blurring past the window, familiar streets I’d memorized during two years of living here, and I watched them go by while the question built in my chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the shelter?”
He glanced at me. “It wasn’t about credit. You love that place. I wanted it to be safe whether you were there or not.”
“Whether I came back to you or not.”
“Yes.”
I looked out the window. “You’re making it very difficult to maintain my position.”
“What position?”
“The one where I’m still mad at you.”
“That’s not why I did it.”
“I know.” I was quiet for a beat. “That’s what makes it worse.”
Back at the estate I fell asleep on the library couch after dinner. I didn’t mean to. The drive, the emotions, the baby pressing against every organ I owned, all of it hit me at once and I was out before I finished the chapter I was reading.
I woke up to a voice. Low, quiet, close. Not talking to me.
“...and your mom is going to read to you every night. She does voices. They’re terrible but you’ll love them.”
I kept my eyes closed. Finneas was beside me on the couch, my feet in his lap, and he was talking to my belly. His hand was resting on the bump, his thumb moving in slow circles, and his voice was barely above a whisper.
“She’s going to teach you to be brave. She’s the bravest person I know. She walked into a room full of wolves today and didn’t flinch. She’ll probably have you doing the same by the time you’re five.”
My throat tightened. I kept my breathing even.
“I’m going to be there for everything. First word, first step, first time you need someone at three in the morning. I’ll be there.” His thumb paused on my belly. “I won’t be my father. I promise you that.”
The baby fluttered against his hand, a soft movement I felt from the inside, and I heard Finneas exhale, shaky, the way he breathed when something hit him harder than he expected.
I kept my eyes closed because if I opened them he’d stop talking and I didn’t want him to stop. I lay there listening to him make promises to our son in the quiet library with his hand on my belly and his voice cracking on words he’d never say to anyone who was awake.
That night I lay in the guest room staring at the ceiling. The peonies on the nightstand were wilting, petals curling at the edges, and I should have thrown them out days ago but I kept not doing it. The baby was pressing against my ribs, my back hurt, the bed was comfortable, and I couldn’t sleep.
I rolled onto my side and stared at the door. Thirty feet of hallway between this bed and his. I’d been sleeping in this room for two weeks, alone, with my hand on my belly, telling myself I was fine. I was fine. Co-parenting. Boundaries. Walls.
But I wasn’t fine. I was lying in a guest room in a house full of people who could hear a pin drop from three floors away, and the only person I wanted next to me was at the other end of the hall, probably awake too, probably staring at his own ceiling, probably thinking about the same thirty feet I was thinking about.
I was tired. Not just physically, though the pregnancy was handling that. I was tired of being careful. Tired of measuring every inch of closeness I allowed, of monitoring my own feelings like they were a security risk. Tired of waking up at three in the morning reaching for someone who wasn’t there because I’d decided he shouldn’t be.
He’d talked to my belly tonight. Made promises to our son he didn’t know I heard. And I could keep lying here pretending that didn’t wreck me, or I could get up.
I got up. Put on my robe over my pajamas. Opened the door, walked down the hall, thirty feet of hardwood under my bare feet, and stood in front of his door.
I knocked.
