“You’re going to leave her there?” I ask as he returns to the kitchen table.
“For now. She’s fine. We sleep all over the place ever since Leyla left. I figure, sleeping arrangements are kind of the least of our worries.”
“That’s funny. Brett told me she sleeps with you.”
“Usually. She’s scared, I think. Leyla left the same week that I was in the hospital. I think she’s trying to hold on to whatever she can.”
“Poor kid.”
“Yeah. I keep telling her that Mommy’s just away on a trip for a little while and Daddy’s not going anywhere. But I don’t think she’s buying it.”
“Can’t blame her.”
“I think it’s a good sign if she falls asleep and I’m not right next to her, though. It means she feels comfortable.” He pauses, considering. “Either that or she’s just exhausted.”
I smile.
“So, you were saying? About your not-so-fabulous single life?”
“Oh. Nothing, really. I’m just over it. The one serious guy I dated turned out to be a total freeloader. He jumped from one job to the next, and it was always the boss’s fault. The first time, I felt bad for him. But after four jobs in two years, I started to wonder.”
“Yikes.”
“And he was trying really hard to move in with me. He kept saying that it would save ‘us’ so much money because I own my condo and he was renting. But really, it would have just given him more of an excuse to be out of work.”
“Yeah, that definitely sounds shady.”
“I think he thought I was rich because I don’t have a mortgage. But I’m not, at all. My mom’s life insurance policy paid for my place.”
Matt twirls his spoon between his fingers, furrowing his brow.
“Wait. The money you tried to give me? Was that from your mom?”
“Yeah. She loved you, Matt. She would have wanted you to have it, if you weren’t so damn stubborn,” I reply. “Anyway, he also talked all the time about us having kids, and every time he went there, I could physically feel my uterus trying to implode.”
“That’s not just freeloading,” Matt replies. “That’s a trap.”
“Right? Also, it’s not part of my plan at all.”
“You don’t want kids?” Matt asks, furrowing his brow.
I shake my head.
“Why not? You always loved kids.”
“I did, and I do. But I don’t want any of my own.”
He stares at me, silent.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m just surprised.”
I take a bite of rice.
“It’s good, you know.”
“What’s that?”
