Page 233 of ClickBack

I rub a hand over my face. “I haven’t worked that out.”

“That’s what scares me.”

“It scares me that you’re looking at me like I just ended something.”

She gets up and goes to the counter. The bag is still there, food getting cold while neither of us can get this said right.

“I’ve been a mother my whole adult life,” she says. “And I love Rae. I would choose her again. But I have just started finding out what I like when nobody needs me to do something first. I don’t know whether I want to begin again.”

“Okay.”

“It might stay no.”

“I heard you.”

“Did you? Because a baby isn’t something we can compromise on. We can’t do it halfway. If you decide you want one and I don’t, love won’t make that a small thing.”

I stare at her. She’s right, and I hate that I heard the threat of losing her before I heard the rest.

“I’m not calling it small.”

“You sound angry that I brought it up.”

“I’m angry that you keep telling me who I’ll be when I get tired of you.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No. You gave him five years.”

She closes her eyes. I get out of the chair, then stop with my hand on its back. I don’t need to walk over there and crowd the answer out of her.

“I’m trying to be fair to you,” she says.

“I don’t want fair to mean you leave me before I get the chance to decide anything.”

“I haven’t asked you to leave.”

“You kissed me like you were about to.”

That reaches her. I wish it hadn’t. I wish I could have kept that much of myself off the table until I knew what she was going to do with it.

She comes back to her chair but doesn’t sit.

“I love you,” she says. “I want this to work. I’m trying to talk about something that could matter to both of us.”

I look at her hands. She is holding one inside the other, tightly.

“Then why does it feel like I’m applying for a life you’ve already decided I shouldn’t have?”

“Because you think every fear I tell you is a decision. Sometimes I’m just frightened, Jarrett.”

I don’t have an answer for that.

She sits. I remain behind the chair, embarrassed now by how badly I want her to tell me we’re fine when fine would mean nothing in this conversation.

“Did seeing Sutton make you want another baby?” I ask.

“It made me remember wanting one. I’m still sorting out the difference.”