Chapter 5
David
As the evening continues, I eat my pad see ew and let them talk around me, content to listen. There’s relief in being a spectator to other people’s chaos, especially when the interior of my own head feels like jury deliberations on the fate of my entire adult life.
I’ve known these men for the better part of fifteen years. They all met at Harvard. I was the older brother who got pulled into the orbit by proximity and stubbornness.
I used to feel like an annex to this group.
An honorary member, the way you let your brother’s friends hang around after college because you’re all orbiting the same event horizon—weddings, funerals, the birth announcements that become a group-text joke, the inevitable divorce.
Even after I left my father’s firm and built my own life, I figured they kept inviting me because every group needs a rule follower—someone to absorb the punchlines while the others riff.
In the beginning, it was about shared proximity and inertia.
But it’s different now.
After Kelsie left, I stopped being the brother on the periphery and became something else entirely.
They rallied. Not just Caleb, who had always been the emergency contact of record, but the whole group, who collectively decided that a father with a motherless infant should not be left to his own devices.
Sudden, alarming levels of childcare expertise materialized.
Dominic held a baby for the first time because Michaela had croup and he’d learned a technique online to help her breathe better.
Logan arrived at my apartment one Saturday with color-coded sleep schedules and a whiteboard, convinced he could optimize Michaela’s nap cycle.
Bennett started a tradition of Saturday breakfasts at a rotating roster of diners, which he claimed was for the “socialization of the offspring,” but which in practice mostly involved him ordering piles of pancakes and eating most of them himself.
They became a troupe of uncles, and I’ll never tell them this, but it saved my goddamn life.
Four men watched me come apart in an apartment that smelled like formula and spit-up, and then refused to let me put the door back on.
That was the deal I didn’t sign up for. Most days I am grateful.
Some days it feels like a liability—four more people who have seen me struggle when I was raised to be capable and competent.
When I should have been able to manage on my own.
“So. Any movement from Voldemort’s camp?” Dominic asks around a mouthful of drunken noodles.
The room shifts.
Caleb lowers his beer. Logan stops fiddling with the label on his bottle. Bennett leans back in his chair and fixes Dominic with a look that says maybe don’t, which Dominic ignores, because of course he does.
“What?” Dominic says. “We were all thinking it.”
“We don’t call her that in front of Michaela,” I say automatically.
“We are, crucially, not in front of Michaela.”
“He’s right,” Caleb says. “Still. Maybe don’t.”
“Exactly,” Logan adds. “Because if we plant something like that in his head, he might accidentally call her that in court. And that won’t help his case at all.”
Dominic lifts both hands. “Fine. The woman formerly known as Voldemort.”
“Much better,” I mutter.
Bennett picks up a piece of chicken and holds it between his plate and his mouth. “Have her attorneys filed anything new?”
“Nothing since the petition and the temporary visitation request.” I set down my fork. “Dad thinks they’re waiting to see how aggressive the judge wants to be on interim contact. If they think they can get supervised visitation early, they’ll push that first and use it to build momentum.”
“And if they don’t?” Logan asks.
“Then they lean on the rehabilitation narrative. Parenting classes. Therapy. Stable marriage. Wealth. Community involvement. Whatever version of Kelsie performs best in court.”
Dominic grimaces. “She always was good at performing.”
The understatement of the century.
I stare at my food, appetite dimming.
“How are you feeling about it?” Bennett asks.
“Like I’d rather set the printer on fire again than sit in a courtroom watching Kelsie’s lawyers paint her as Mother of the Year.”
“That’s fair.” Bennett’s expression is the same one he wears in boardrooms—focused, analytical. “What’s the strategy?”
“Dad’s leading. Caleb’s co-counsel.” I take a drink. “We demonstrate consistent, stable, sole parenting for seven-odd years. Character witnesses. School records. The fact that Kelsie voluntarily signed away her rights and has made no attempt to contact Michaela until now.”
“And they’ll argue—”
“Postpartum depression. Coercion. A powerful family that pressured a vulnerable young mother.” I hear the bitterness in my own voice and don’t bother tempering it. “It’s fiction, but it’s good fiction. The kind that makes judges feel compassionate.”
Caleb leans forward. “We’re solid on witness strategy. Michaela’s teacher. The swim coach. Marta.” He pauses. “And we should talk about the principal.”
There it is.
“No,” I say.
Caleb doesn’t flinch. “David—”
“I said no.”
Dominic, who’s been uncharacteristically silent for the last thirty seconds, sets down his glass. “The principal,” he repeats, with the careful tone of a man disarming a bomb. “That would be . . . Michaela’s principal?”
“Yes,” Caleb says.
“The foxy one with the red hair and . . . what was it about her eyes?” He directs the last part of the question to Logan.
“Stars,” Logan supplies immediately—smirking, the bastard. “Michaela says she has stars in her eyes for David.”
“Ah, yes,” Dominic says, grinning like the cat who got the cream. “The foxy principal with stars in her eyes. She’s obviously a fan of yours, David. Why are we saying no to her as a witness?”
“Because I don’t want to involve her more than necessary.” I keep my voice flat. Controlled. Professional. “She’s already helped enough. The school updated the security protocols, so they’re helping in their own way. Nora doesn’t need to be dragged into a custody hearing.”
“Nora,” Dominic singsongs.
Logan laughs, and I shoot them both a look that has him miming a zipper on his lips.
“She wouldn’t be dragged,” Caleb says. “She’d be asked. There’s a difference. And she’s the single most credible voice we can put on a stand about your involvement in Michaela’s school life.”
“Then ask her teacher. A counselor. Someone less—” I catch myself.
Too late.
Dominic’s eyes narrow. He leans back in his chair and smiles slowly. “Less what?”
“Less involved,” I say.
“Less attractive?” Dominic offers helpfully.
“Less likely to make you forget basic sentence structure?” Logan adds.
“Less likely to get him disbarred by eye contact,” Caleb says.
I set my beer down with enough care to qualify as restraint. “Are the three of you finished?”
“Not remotely,” Dominic says.
Bennett, to his credit, looks mildly exasperated. “Can we not turn this into a middle-school lunch table for five minutes?”
“It’s already a middle-school lunch table,” Dominic says. “There’s gossip, there are noodles, David’s visibly suffering—”
“Dominic.”
He lifts both hands. “Fine. I’m done. For now.”
I know that tone. It means he’s storing ammunition.
Caleb watches me over the rim of his bottle. “You didn’t answer the actual question.”
I drag a hand over my jaw. “There isn’t an actual question.”
“There is,” he says. “Why don’t you want Nora Harrison involved?”
Because the idea of putting her on a witness stand while Kelsie’s attorneys dissect every interaction she’s had with me makes my skin crawl.
Because she already has enough risk attached to being kind to my daughter.
Because if anyone with half a brain looked too closely at the way I react to her name, I’d be fucked.
Because I kissed her like a man having some kind of public breakdown in a private kitchen, and if that comes out in open court I may as well hand Kelsie’s attorneys a gift basket and a loaded weapon.
I do not say any of that.
Instead I look at Caleb and say, “Because she’s Michaela’s principal. There are professional boundaries involved, and I’m not interested in making her life harder.”
It is, annoyingly, a very good answer.
Bennett nods once. “That’s reasonable.”
Dominic points a chopstick at him. “Boo. Don’t encourage him when he’s being all noble and emotionally constipated.”
“I’m not constipated.”
Logan tilts his head. “That’s exactly what a constipated person would say.”
Caleb ignores them. “The boundary issue is real. But if we need her, we need her. She can testify to Michaela’s adjustment, to your involvement, to the disruption Kelsie’s appearance caused.”
“I know what she can testify to.”
“Then why are we arguing?”
“Because I said no.”
Caleb’s mouth twitches. “Compelling legal analysis.”
I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling for a second. “Can we table this for one evening?”
“No,” Dominic says immediately. “Because now I’m interested.”
“You were interested the moment Caleb said the word principal.”
“Correct. And now I’m fascinated.”
Bennett gives him a flat look. “Try, for one minute, to behave like an adult.”
“I am behaving like an adult. Adults love gossip.”
“Well, this adult doesn’t,” I say, picking up my drink. “You won’t be getting anything from me.”
It’s not long before the food is finished and everyone is leaving. It’s still early enough that I decide to hang back to finish my work.
“Don’t stay too late,” Caleb says, sliding his arms into his coat to follow the others out.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t forget to set the alarm when you leave.”
“I won’t.” I laugh. “Just go, already.”
The door closes behind him. The office goes so quiet I can hear the building’s ventilation system cycling.
Thai containers stacked in the trash. Empty bottles lined up on the conference table. The faint ghost of Dominic’s cologne, which is always too much and tonight was no exception.
I should clean up, lock the doors, set the alarm, drive to my empty apartment, sleep in my empty bed, and wake up tomorrow with a clear head and my priorities in order.
Instead, I head into my office, sit at my desk, and pour myself a whiskey, thinking about her.
Why don’t you want Nora Harrison involved?
Why? Because I’m trying really hard not to give into my urges and fuck her. And being around her makes that harder.
I drain the whiskey before I let myself picture what I’d do if she were standing in this office right now. The specifics are vivid enough to make the glass feel necessary. It burns going down, which is appropriate. Everything about this situation should burn.
I check my phone. A text from my mother: a photo of Michaela asleep in the blanket fort, mouth open, one arm flung over the edge of the sofa, looking like a tiny dictator who exhausted herself issuing decrees. My mother has added a single caption:
Mom:
She says seals are ‘the dogs of the ocean’ and I’m not allowed to correct her.
My chest does the thing it does when Michaela is safe and happy and I’m not the one providing it. Something between relief and a grief I’ve never been able to name—the awareness that she needs more than just me, and the terror of what happens when more than just me shows up with a court document.
I put the phone down. Stand up. Grab my jacket.
Lock the office. Set the alarm. Walk to the car.
I sit behind the wheel for a full minute with the engine running, both hands on the steering wheel, staring at the parking-garage wall.
Left is home. Twenty-two minutes to an apartment that smells like nothing, sounds like nothing, and has one wineglass in the drying rack because I only ever need one.
Right is . . . not home.
I turn left.
I drive four blocks, make two turns, and realize I am not going home.
I’m heading north. Toward Lincoln Park. Toward a street I’ve only driven to once but somehow know the route by heart.
My hands tighten on the wheel.
What the hell are you doing, David?
I’m going to talk to her. That’s all. I owe her an apology for what I did and the way I’ve been behaving. She deserves to hear from me directly.
That’s the story I tell myself at the next red light.
At the one after that, it evolves into: I’m apologizing for crossing a line and making her uncomfortable.
By the time I pull onto her street, it’s become: I’m a complete fucking idiot.
Her porch light is on.
So is the lamp in the front window, warm and low behind the curtains. I should keep driving. I know I should. It’s after nine on a Friday, and decent men don’t show up unannounced at a woman’s house because they can’t stop thinking about kissing her.
Then again, decent men also don’t spend a week dodging a woman after grabbing her face in her kitchen and kissing her like they’ve lost their minds.
I park.
Sit there another thirty seconds.
Then get out and walk to her door.