Chapter 2
Six months ago, I had told myself Sloan and I had become incompatible.
Standing beside my mother’s chair, I wondered how much of our marriage I had misunderstood because Sloan respected boundaries so quietly that I rarely noticed she was doing it.
“Where is it?”
“Still downstairs.”
I almost went immediately.
Instead, Willa made a soft noise.
Sloan lifted her from the crib.
“Would you like to hold her?”
I froze.
I had avoided it since Friday.
Not obviously, I hoped.
But Sloan had noticed.
Of course she had.
“I don’t know how.”
“That can be fixed.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She came closer.
My daughter looked impossibly small.
Sloan adjusted the blanket.
“Put one hand here.”
I followed her instructions.
“And support her head.”
“I know that part.”
“Congratulations. You’ve completed chapter one.”
I looked at her.
She was smiling.
Barely.
But smiling.
Then she transferred Willa into my arms.
Nothing in my life had prepared me for the weight of nine pounds.
Not because it was heavy.
Because it wasn’t.
That was what terrified me.
She felt like trust made physical.
Her head rested against my forearm.
One tiny hand escaped the blanket and opened against my shirt.
I stopped breathing.
“Vincent,” Sloan said softly.
“What?”
“You can breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You absolutely are not.”
I inhaled.
Willa blinked.
Dark blue-gray eyes met mine.
Mine, Sloan had said.
I saw it now.
Not ownership.
Recognition.
Something ancient and immediate moved through me.
“Hello,” I whispered.
Willa yawned.
Sloan laughed quietly.
“Strong first impression.”
“I’ve had worse meetings.”
“You’re talking to your daughter like she’s an investor.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Tell her anything.”
So I did.
I told my four-week-old daughter that the building across the avenue had once been the tallest residential tower in the neighborhood, though it no longer was.
I told her New York was loud and impatient but beautiful when it wanted to be.
I told her yellow taxis were more important in movies than in actual life.
Sloan sat in the rocking chair listening.
When I glanced at her, her eyes were wet.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t nothing.”
She looked away.
“You would have been good at this.”
The words hit somewhere I wasn’t prepared to defend.
“Would have?”
Her face changed.
“I mean—”
“I’m here.”
“For now.”
“Sloan.”
She rose.
“I’m tired. I’m going to shower.”
She passed me carefully, leaving me alone with Willa.
For now.
The phrase stayed with me.
I had spent years living as if permanence were something foolish people believed in.
Businesses changed.
Markets changed.
People changed.
My father had taught me early that survival meant staying prepared to leave any room before you needed it.
I had carried that lesson directly into my marriage.
Now I wondered what it had cost.
On Sunday morning, Jenna arrived carrying two bags of groceries and enough hostility toward me to power lower Manhattan.
She was Sloan’s closest friend from college, a pediatric physical therapist who had never liked me even when Sloan and I were happy.
“Vincent.”
“Jenna.”
She looked around.
“You’re still here.”
“It’s my apartment.”
“Historically, that has not guaranteed your presence.”
Sloan appeared from the hallway.
“Jenna.”
“What? I’m being friendly.”
“That was friendly?” I asked.
“For me.”
She kissed Sloan’s cheek and immediately asked about Willa.
Within minutes, the kitchen had transformed.
Jenna unpacked soup, bread, fruit, prepared meals, and several containers labeled with dates.
“You cooked all this?”
“No, my mother did. I cut the labels.”
“A valuable contribution.”
“I have exceptional handwriting.”
Sloan rolled her eyes.
It felt unexpectedly normal.
The kind of ordinary Sunday I used to believe I didn’t have time for.
Eventually Sloan took Willa into the bedroom for a nap.
Jenna remained at the kitchen island.
The second the door closed, she looked at me.
“She won’t ask you for anything.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“That isn’t admirable, Vincent.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“She needed you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I considered snapping back.
Six months ago, I would have.
Instead, I leaned against the counter.
“Probably not enough.”
That seemed to surprise her.
Jenna folded her arms.
“She loved you for a long time after you stopped making it easy.”
I looked toward the hallway.
“Did she tell you she was pregnant before the divorce?”
Jenna’s expression changed.
That was answer enough.
“When?”
“I’m not getting in the middle.”
“You’re already in the middle.”
“No. I’m standing near the middle, criticizing you. Entirely different activity.”
“Jenna.”
She sighed.
“She found out in late November.”
My chest tightened.
We separated in January.
“She knew for two months.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Jenna’s eyes hardened.
“You should ask yourself what those two months were like.”
I remembered.
Tokyo.
Zurich.
Two nights in New York.
A canceled anniversary dinner.
A Christmas Eve I arrived home after midnight because a call with Dubai “couldn’t wait.”
Sloan had left a gift unopened beside my plate.
I remembered something else.
She had asked me, one night in December, whether I ever imagined having children.
I had been answering email.
I said, “Not now.”
She asked, “Ever?”
I said something careless.
Probably someday.
Or maybe.
Or not until things slow down.
Things never slowed down because I designed my life so they couldn’t.
“She tried,” Jenna said.
I looked up.
“What?”
“She tried to tell you.”
My pulse changed.
“When?”
“That’s Sloan’s story.”
“You just said—”
“I said enough.”
“Not nearly.”
Jenna gathered the empty grocery bags.
May you like
“She wrote it down once because you kept changing flights and meetings. She thought maybe if she put the words somewhere you had to see them, you’d finally stop long enough to understand.”
My mouth went dry.
