Chapter 3 - Half a Conversation
The months after that hurt in ways I never said out loud.
Nora left for appointment after appointment. Some took an hour. Some ate half the day. She'd come home wrung out, rubbing her shoulders, flexing her fingers like they ached down to the bone. More than once I found her asleep on the floor of Theo's room, a picture book tented on her chest, and I'd drape a blanket over both of them because neither one had made it to a bed.
Every tired smile she gave me felt like a receipt for everything I hadn't provided.
On the job I'd catch myself running numbers that led nowhere. If I'd started my own outfit five years back. If I'd worked more weekends. If I'd ever once been good with a dollar.
The answer was always the same. I wasn't enough.
Every night before I turned off the lamp, I knelt by our bed, kissed her cheek, and whispered, "Thank you."
She'd run her fingers through my hair and say nothing. I told myself she was holding back tears.
Then came last Tuesday.
I was twenty minutes into the shift when I realized my torque wrench was still on the bench in my garage. Marcus, my boss, looked up from the gutted apartment we were renovating and raised a hand.
"Hey, Grant. We good?"
I gave him a thumbs-up. Didn't bother telling him I was running home.
I'd worked for Marcus Poole for six years. He owned the company — Poole Restoration, his name right there on the truck doors — and he'd taught me half of what I know. He showed up to Theo's birthday parties with a wrapped gift under his arm. One December he slipped an extra few hundred into my check and swore up and down it was a bookkeeping mistake.
I trusted that man like family.
So when I turned onto my street and saw his truck parked in front of my house, I was surprised, but I wasn't scared. Not yet.
I pulled in behind the gate and walked up the drive. The kitchen window was cracked open.
That's when I heard Marcus's voice, low and easy.
"So... he still believes the surrogacy story?"
I stopped walking.
Nora laughed. Soft. Almost fond.
"Every single word."
Blood roared in my ears. Marcus said something too quiet to catch. Then Nora again, plain as anything:
"Next week we finally move in."
I don't remember hearing another word.
My knees just went. I slid straight down the siding until I was sitting in the mulch of the flower bed, palms pressed into the wet dirt, breathing like I'd run a mile.
Move in.
Marcus had keys to every property our crew touched. My mind didn't waste a second wondering which house she meant.
May you like
By the time I got back in my truck, the ugliest answer had already moved in and made itself at home in my chest.
I never went inside.
