I Had Learned Not to Call You

Two weeks after I left, Roman met us in the family room at Maya's clinic.

I arrived carrying Sophie and found him standing beside a table covered with bags. A new baby monitor. Bottles. A soft blanket in a box. The sort of things a person could buy while avoiding the fact that he didn't know what his daughter needed that week.

He looked thinner. His suit still fit perfectly, which somehow made the exhaustion beneath his eyes more obvious.

"I brought the car," he said. "I can drive you afterward."

"Jenna is taking us."

"There's more room in mine."

"Roman."

He stopped. Looked at the bags. Then at me.

"Right."

I put the diaper bag on a chair.

"We don't need another monitor. I already bought one."

"Which one?"

"One that works."

His mouth moved as though he wanted to smile and couldn't quite manage it.

"Of course you did."

Sophie stirred. Roman's eyes dropped to her, and the rest of the room seemed to disappear from his attention.

"May I?"

I passed her to him.

He held her close with both hands, looking at every part of her face. She made a small irritated noise, stretched her legs, then settled.

"She's heavier."

"She's growing."

"I know. I just..."

He stopped speaking and touched her cheek with one finger.

I sat opposite him. For several minutes, neither of us said anything.

Then he asked about feeding, sleep, the pediatrician. Real questions. I answered them without interpreting every one as an attempt to get me back.

When she began rooting against his shirt, I prepared a bottle. He shifted to hand her over, but I shook my head.

"You can feed her."

"Tell me if I'm doing it wrong."

"I usually do."

He looked up, and for half a second we were ourselves.

I showed him how she'd begun pausing halfway through. He listened. When milk dribbled down her chin, he reached for his handkerchief before I gave him a burp cloth.

"You'll want to keep that one clean," I said.

"It's a handkerchief."

"And you're wearing a shirt that costs more than my old car."

He looked down at the damp patch spreading across his chest.

"She's expensive company."

I laughed before I remembered not to.

His face changed at the sound. I looked away.

Later, I lifted Sophie to change her. My wrist cramped beneath her weight. Roman stood immediately, one hand already reaching for my elbow.

Maya came in carrying water at the same moment.

"Could you take her for a minute?" I asked her.

She put down the cups and did.

Only after I sat did I notice Roman's hand hanging uselessly between us.

He lowered it slowly.

I hadn't refused him deliberately. That was what made the moment so painful. My body had asked the person it now expected to help.

Maya left us alone again after the change.

Roman sat with his forearms on his knees.

"You would have given her to me before."

I looked at the little sleeping bundle beside him.

"Before, you were there."

He rubbed his palms together, a restless movement I'd never seen at dinner parties.

"Tell me what you need, Erin."

"Right now? A few more weeks of this arrangement."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know."

He glanced toward the door. "I fixed the nursery shelf. The curtains too. And I can hire someone to help overnight. You wouldn't have to do everything."

My throat tightened.

"I didn't leave because of the shelf."

"I'm not saying you did."

"Then why are you telling me about it?"

He leaned back, frustration crossing his face.

"Because I can't do anything in that house without thinking about you. Because I keep finding things you asked me to do and wondering why I made you ask twice."

That answer reached me.

I stared at his hands. The same hands that had held mine during labor. The scar across his knuckle I'd traced in bed while he pretended not to like being fussed over.

"I don't know what happens next," I said.

"I can wait."

"Can you wait without asking me every time whether waiting has worked?"

He looked wounded. Then angry at being wounded.

"You think I'm performing?"

"I think you want an answer before I have one."

He stood and went to the window. In the reflection, I could see his face clearly enough to know he was fighting the urge to argue.

"I have spent two weeks trying not to call every person who might know where you are."

"That doesn't make not calling them a gift."

He turned.

For a moment, I recognized the man people feared. The stillness. The hard mouth. The expectation that an obstacle would eventually give way.

Sophie made a noise, and both of us looked at her.

The anger left his face.

"You're right," he said, but he sounded as though he hated saying it.

"I don't need you to enjoy this. I need you to understand why it matters."

When the visit ended, he helped fasten Sophie's coat. He remembered the bottle cap I'd left on the table and tucked it into the bag.

At the door, he said, "I've started seeing someone. A therapist."

I stopped.

"Did Bianca make you?"

"She suggested it with enough force to qualify as a threat. I still made the appointment."

I smiled faintly.

"I'm glad."

"Would you come with me eventually?"

I thought about the room we had just occupied. How easily it had become home for five minutes, and how quickly I had felt the old pressure again.

"Eventually, maybe."

His eyes settled on my mouth. I felt the look even through the exhaustion.

He hadn't kissed me since the morning before I left.

For one dangerous second, I wanted to step toward him. To let him put his arms around me and stop holding myself together.

Instead, I picked up the bag.

"You did well with her today," I said. "But one good afternoon doesn't undo that night."

"I know."

I wasn't sure he did. Not fully.

He opened the door for us anyway.

I waited until Jenna had pulled away before I let myself cry.