“When will they let me?”
“As soon as they think you’re ready.”
That sounds too far away already, even though I know he’s trying to make it sound close.
I let my eyes close for a second, then open them again. “You stayed.”
He gives me a look like the question itself surprises him. “Of course I stayed.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
There’s no effort in the answer. No grandness. He says it like it was never a choice.
My throat tightens all over again.
I look down and realize his hand is resting near mine on the blanket. Close enough to take if I want it. Not claiming anything. Just there.
I slide my fingers into his, and he closes his hand around mine at once.
That one small contact nearly undoes me more than the rest of it. Maybe because it’s quiet. Maybe because after everything that happened between us, after all the hurt and confusion and terrible timing, he’s still here and still solid and still somehow the first person I wanted to see when I woke up.
“She’s really here,” I say, more to myself than to him.
“Yes.”
“A daughter.”
“Yes.”
I laugh softly. “I really thought it was a boy.”
I look at him for a long moment, my hand still in his, my body sore and heavy and nowhere near steady, but my mind suddenly clearer than it has been in days.
“Are you unhappy?” he asks me.
“No,” I say. “Quite the opposite, actually. It’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
The look he gives me makes me want to hide, and at the same time bask under it like the sun. I wish I could turn back time and go back to the moment we met on the plane. I wish I had never walked away. I wish I had never listened to Anna.
My memories of cold, lonely doctor appointments would have been replaced by a loving man standing by my side, helping me through sleepless nights and tired, swollen feet.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Yeah?” he says.
“How much do you trust your sister?”
He tenses at that. “Why do you ask?”
“The champagne yesterday,” I say. “I asked the caterers about it.”
His face changes. “When?”
“This morning. Before everything happened.”
He waits.
