Ethan turned red.
Martin set his napkin beside his plate.
“I think we should go.”
“How would you know?”
Ethan stood immediately.
“Martin, wait. This sounds worse than it was.”
Martin looked at him for a long moment.
“Your four-month-old daughter was in the emergency room, Ethan.”
He didn’t need to say anything else.
“Martin, wait. This sounds worse than it was.”
Rebecca came around the table and touched my arm.
“I’m glad she’s doing better.”
“Thank you.”
The dinner Ethan had begged me to save was over.
The minute the door shut behind them, Ethan turned on me.
“Do you have any idea what you just did to me?”
“I think we should go.”
There it was again.
His presentation.
His boss.
His dinner. His reputation. His stress.
I picked up my purse.
Ethan stared at me. “That’s it? You humiliated me in front of my boss, and now you’re just going to leave?”
There it was again.
“Not exactly. I’ll be in touch once I’ve filed for divorce.”
Sylvia stepped forward.
“You’re insane! I was only trying to help my son.”
And that was the problem.
She had spent his entire life rescuing him from discomfort, and Ethan had spent his entire life learning that someone else would carry whatever he put down.
“I’ll be in touch once I’ve filed for divorce.”
I drove back to Daniel’s house.
The lights were low when I walked in.
My sister-in-law was asleep on the couch.
Nora was in the bassinet beside her, breathing softly, one fist tucked near her cheek.
I stood over her for a long time.
Then I
touched two fingers to her tiny hand.
I drove back to Daniel’s house.
She closed her tiny fingers around mine without waking.
For two days, Ethan had worried about his presentation, his house, his dinner, his boss, and what I had done to him.
He never once asked what the fever had done to his daughter.
The night at the hospital could have been one terrible choice made by an exhausted man.
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