Chapter 4
The knife hovered over the clove of garlic.
“I’m pregnant,” Kate said.
The cutting board was littered with onion skins, and the pot of water on the stove was boiling with nothing in it.
Through the window, the lake stretched like a dark ribbon between the distant building lights.
I’d put on low music—some acoustic guitar Joanne sent me whenever she suspected I was eating poorly—and I’d spent the last ten minutes wrestling with a carrot too woody for a decent soup.
“All right,” I said.
The words came out on their own. They were completely useless.
On the other end, silence stretched. I heard a faint tap—maybe her nails clicking against the table. I remembered her dark burgundy nails, the gold watch on my nightstand, the way she’d laughed in my kitchen before putting every single thing back in its place before she left.
“No, it’s not,” she answered.
I set the knife down on the board. I had the phone wedged between my ear and shoulder, my hands wet from washing produce. I took a firmer grip on it.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”
I didn’t know what I’d meant. That I’d heard her. That I was still here. That her voice wasn’t about to get swallowed up by boiling water and background music.
“I took two tests,” Kate said. “It wasn’t a questionable line. There were two. I read the instructions. Twice.”
The image formed without my permission: Kate in her bathroom, wearing that sharp, precise look she got when the world failed to deliver on its promises.
I didn’t ask if she was sure. I didn’t ask why she hadn’t called sooner.
There wasn’t a single version of those questions that didn’t sound like an itemized bill.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in any pain?”
“No. I’m sitting in my kitchen. I have water. I also have an apple I don’t plan on eating, in case you’re interested in a full situation report.”
The joke came through with a chipped edge. I leaned back against the counter.
“I am.”
“Cole.”
“I know. Sorry.”
Steam from the pot warmed my face. I cut the burner. In my family, when a recipe got out of hand, the first step was lowering the heat. This wasn’t a recipe. My brain just kept searching for something useful to compare it to.
“I don’t want you coming over,” she said before I could open my mouth. “Not tonight.”
“I’m not coming over.”
Kate took a beat to answer. At least she didn’t have to defend her front door.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment.
“Do you want me to stay on the phone?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay not to know.”
Kate blew out a breath through her nose. Half a laugh, half a protest.
“Please don’t give me coffee-mug slogans.”
“I don’t own inspirational mugs. Marcus tried giving me one, and I used it to store drywall screws.”
That pulled a clearer exhale out of her. I held on to it, but I didn’t push.
“We can meet tomorrow,” I said. “Wherever you want. One hour. No decisions if you don’t want to make decisions.”
“I want to talk, but not here and not at your place.”
“There’s a coffee roaster in Fremont. It’s loud, and the espresso is way overpriced. Nobody can overhear anything useful in there.”
“That sounds engineered to keep me from slipping out before breakfast again.”
The line stung more than it should have. She’d left my house exactly as promised. I’d respected the napkin note exactly as I was supposed to. Even so, I checked the sun visor every time I climbed into the truck.
“I’m not blocking any exits,” I said.
Kate didn’t answer right away.
“Nine-thirty,” she finally said. “Tomorrow. One hour.”
“One hour.”
“And don’t go researching anything tonight.”
I glanced at the closed laptop on my dining table. I didn’t usually leave it out. I’d brought home game-film notes in case I wanted to study the Breakers’ defensive reads before going to sleep.
“I won’t research anything.”
“I don’t believe you, but thanks for trying to make it sound plausible.”
“Trouble.”
The nickname slipped out before I could calculate whether I still had the right to use it. She stayed quiet. Then, her voice softer, she said:
“See you tomorrow, Cole.”
“See you tomorrow, Kate.”
The call ended.
I stared down at the screen. The pot was cooling, the steam fading. On the board, the garlic smelled sharper than before, and the diced onion had settled into a glossy sheen. I washed my hands, wiped down the counter, and slid the knife back into the wooden block.
I lasted four minutes.
Then I opened the laptop.
* * *
By nine-eighteen, I was already sitting beneath the skylight at the Fremont roaster.
Rain pelted the glass in short, uneven gusts.
Behind the counter, the grinder roared every thirty seconds, and the air smelled of burnt sugar, roasted beans, and damp wool.
I’d picked a table against the brick wall, far from the entrance, with two chairs positioned so neither of us had our backs to the room.
The second I sat down, I hated myself a little.
That wasn’t presence. It was logistics masquerading as thoughtfulness.
I shoved the notebook into my backpack before Kate arrived.
I hadn’t written much. Just a list of clinic names, a contact line for my team insurance plan, a link to a due-date calculator, and six questions that had seemed sensible until I saw them grouped together: *Do you feel safe?
Do you want me to come with you? Have you told anyone?
Do you need money? What did the doctor say? What do we do now?*
The last one was the only honest one. It was also the worst.
Kate walked in wearing a navy coat unbuttoned over a black dress, her dark hair pulled tight into a low ponytail. She carried an empty paper cup in one hand, her bag tucked firmly under her arm. She didn’t look like she’d slept. She also didn’t look like she was going to let anyone notice.
When she spotted me, she paused for half a beat. Then she headed over.
“You’re early,” she said.
“I have a complicated relationship with schedules.”
“That much I remember.”
She sat across from me, set her bag on the empty chair, and scanned the menu chalkboard on the wall.
“Did you order already?”
“I waited.”
“Good. Don’t make a habit of it.”
I went to the counter for two coffees and a blueberry muffin she hadn’t asked for. When I came back, Kate had her hands tucked beneath the table. The gray light from the skylight caught the faint circles under her eyes. She wasn’t wearing her watch.
I set the muffin between us.
“You don’t have to eat it,” I said.
“How generous.”
“I’m practicing.”
One corner of her mouth twitched. She took her cup, checked the lid, and took a careful sip.
“I don’t have morning sickness,” she said. “In case you’re about to pull out a notepad.”
“I didn’t pull out a notepad.”
“Did you bring one, though?”
I didn’t lie. I nodded toward the pack under my chair.
Kate looked at the blue canvas for a second. Then she rested her fingers on the edge of the table. Her dark burgundy nails had a small chip on the right index finger.
“I don’t want you turning me into a project,” she said.
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
I didn’t have a defense that wouldn’t make it worse. I unzipped the bag, pulled out the notebook, and set it on the wood. Then I slid it across to her.
“You’re right.”
Kate didn’t open it. Her fingers hovered near the cover.
“What’s in here?”
“Clinics. My insurance coverage. Estimated dates. Questions that embarrassed me the second I wrote them down.”
“How many questions?”
“Six.”
“That’s worse than I expected.”
“I’m not looking to win any awards today.”
The grinder fired up behind us. Kate waited for the noise to subside.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
I heard her repeat my own question—the one at the very bottom of my list. Her tone wasn’t accusatory. She was just tired.
“I don’t know,” I said.
She looked me straight in the eyes for the first time since walking in. It wasn’t relief I saw; she didn’t owe me that. But her shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t either.”
I drank some coffee, even though it had already gone lukewarm.
“We can start with what we do know.”
“Don’t turn my pregnancy into a status meeting.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. It just sounds the same.”
I nodded. I’d spent years listening to coaches tell us to get back to fundamentals whenever a match fell apart. Run. Tackle. Pass. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it was just a way to avoid admitting the team was rattled.
“I know your name is Kate Mercer,” I said. “I know you’re terrible at eating toast, and that you slip out before sunrise when you set your mind to it. I know you have two positive tests. I know I’m not prepared for this conversation, and that I’m going to say some clumsy things.”
She looked down at the muffin. She pinched off a crumb with her thumb.
“That’s fairly accurate.”
“Can I ask when your last period was?”
Kate held my gaze. I waited. In the end, she answered.
“February twenty-fifth. Roughly. I don’t keep a journal of my body, Cole.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I know.”
“I just want to know if you need medical care today.”
Her fingers tightened around the crumb.
“I called a clinic before coming here. They told me I could schedule an appointment for next week.”
“Good.”
“Don’t say ‘good’ like we just closed a sale.”
“That wasn’t it.”
“I know.” She took another sip. “I’m sorry. I’m trying not to pick a fight with you, and we’ve been here less than twenty minutes.”
“You can pick a fight with me if it helps. I’m just not going to pretend you don’t have every reason to be rattled.”
“I don’t want your permission to be rattled.”
“Understood.”
The word hung between us. A couple at the next table over shared an avocado toast and argued over a map on an iPhone. A kid clinked a spoon against a glass, completely oblivious to his father’s exhausted expression. For a split second, other people’s ordinary lives felt insulting.
Kate pulled off another crumb.
“I didn’t want kids right now,” she said.
“Neither did I.”
I didn’t dress up the answer. She looked up.
“Ever?”