Chapter 12 #2
That small thread of humor eases something in my chest—but only a little. The larger thing remains: his caution, my recklessness, the fact that we’re standing at the edge of a terrible idea and both of us know it.
“I’m serious,” I say more quietly. “I know there are concerns. I know the board would have opinions. I know the optics are not ideal.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“I’m trying to be diplomatic.”
“You’re failing.”
I smile despite myself. “Yes, well. We all have our weaknesses.”
Silence again. Not empty. Weighted.
When he speaks, his voice is measured, lawyer-steady, and I recognize immediately that he’s putting the argument into order because it’s easier than letting himself feel whatever else is in there.
“Kelsie’s attorneys would love this,” he says.
“If they found out Michaela was spending regular time with her principal outside school, they’d spin it six ways before breakfast. They’d call it inappropriate involvement.
Blurred boundaries. Poor judgment. They’d imply instability, and if they were feeling especially ugly, they’ll use it to paint me as reckless and you as unprofessional. ”
The bluntness of it stings because he isn’t wrong.
“I know,” I say.
“And the board—”
“I know.”
“Nora—”
“I know, David.”
I don’t mean for his name to come out soft, but it does. The line goes quiet again, and I can picture him with one hand braced on his hip, damp from the shower, hair wet, jaw tight, trying to out-argue a problem that isn’t, fundamentally, legal. It’s human. Which is always messier.
“I’m not being cavalier about this,” I say. “I understand the risk. To you, to me, to Michaela. I do.”
“Then why are you offering?”
Because your daughter sounded small.
Because I know what it is to be a child trying to make things easier for the adults so they don’t notice you’re scared too.
Because the idea of Michaela performing stability for a stranger while her mother circles the edges of her life makes me physically ill.
Because I am so far past professionally appropriate where the two of you are concerned that pretending otherwise has become its own form of dishonesty.
I say none of that.
“Because she needs continuity,” I say instead. “And because this doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
He doesn’t answer, so I keep going before I lose my nerve.
“I’m not talking about becoming her nanny. I’m talking about helping in specific, limited ways. Emergency pickup, maybe. Or one or two afternoons a week. A bridge, not a wholesale collapse of your childcare infrastructure.”
On the other end of the line, he’s breathing. Nothing else. No immediate objection. No polite retreat. Just that measured silence of his, which is somehow more intimate than if he were speaking.
“I could pick her up,” I say, because once I’ve stepped off the cliff, I may as well commit to the descent.
“Bring her home with me, help with homework, feed her something containing at least one vegetable, and keep things steady until you’re done at the office.
Limited hours. Limited scope. Temporary. We treat it like what it is—a stopgap.”
“You make it sound very reasonable.”
“It is reasonable.”
“It is absolutely not reasonable.”
I let out a breath through my nose. “Fine. It’s practical.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“For whom?” I ask, the question coming from somewhere far too tender.
I close my eyes.
Immediately, traitorously, I’m back in my kitchen. His hands on my hips. His breath at my ear. The word fuck torn out of him like it hurt. My fingers white on the countertop and the absolute, terrifying rightness of having him inside me, behind me, everywhere.
And then, because my mind is cruel and apparently committed to balance, the second half comes too.
The apology. The scrubbing his hands down his face.
I keep fucking this up. The look on his face when I handed him the exit—We’re adults.
This happened—and watched him take it without looking back.
Then the careful titles. The distance. The way he’s held himself away from me ever since like I’m both temptation and hazard tape.
I open my eyes.
“For Michaela,” he says quietly.
Of course. Of course that’s what he means.
I swallow and make my voice work. “Right.”
Archie shifts against me. I focus on the weight of him, the puzzle pieces on the coffee table—anything that isn’t the image of David half-dressed with a towel around his neck.
Michaela’s voice drifts through the phone. “Am I grounded?”
David closes his hand over the receiver—or maybe just turns his head, because the sound dulls. “Yes.”
“How grounded?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
“That’s not a number!”
Despite everything, a laugh escapes me.
David hears it. I know he does, because when he speaks again, there’s a thread of reluctant amusement under the strain. “I’m sorry. Again.”
I ignore his apology, because I honestly can’t hear any more without his regret seeping into my own heart.
Instead, I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and focus on what’s important. “She’s scared.”
“I know.”
“And she’s trying to solve a grown-up problem because that feels safer than waiting for the grown-ups to solve it for her.”
His exhale is quiet. “I know that too.”
Something in me softens. Because I know he isn’t pretending. He isn’t doing the maddening thing some people do, where they reach for competence so fast they skip over the feeling underneath. He knows. He hates it. He’s in it.
“I’m not trying to make your life more complicated,” I say.
“I know,” he says, and there’s nothing defensive in it. Just fatigue. Honesty. “I’m trying very hard not to make it impossible.”
The words land softly and still manage to bruise.
For a second I don’t answer. I sit there with Archie pressed into my side, David’s voice in my ear, and the ridiculous ache of wanting to make this easier for him without becoming one more thing he has to manage.
“Would you like to address the elephant in the room?” I try, summoning all of my courage.
He’s quiet for a moment. Then lets out a rough, “I can’t.”
Can’t.
Fuck. Why does that hurt so much?
“OK, then,” I say, voice catching in my throat.
“In that case, would you like to agree that we never look at it again? I realize you’re in an impossible position, and that you’re under an enormous amount of stress, and your daughter is very important to me.
So if I can offer you that assurance—just, erase it from living memory—can you allow me to help you help your child? ”
He’s quiet again.
There’s movement on his end—faint footsteps, maybe a drawer opening, the low rustle of fabric. Domestic sounds. Intimate only because I’m hearing them at all.
Then he says, very carefully, “If we did anything, it would have to be structured.”
Relief goes through me so fast it feels suspiciously like panic. I keep my tone even by force. “Structured I can do.”
“I know you can.”
God.
I clear my throat. “What would you need?”
“A written pickup authorization on file with the school,” he says immediately, back in lawyer mode now that he has a framework to climb into.
“A limited schedule. No overnights. No ad hoc changes unless there’s an actual emergency.
And if at any point you’re uncomfortable, the board raises concerns, or Michaela starts treating this like a permanent arrangement, we stop. ”
The part of me that has spent most of my adult life stabilizing chaos wants to sigh with relief. Terms. Parameters. Containment. Wonderful, beautiful containment.
The other part of me is stuck on the fact that he is considering it at all.
“That sounds sensible,” I say.
“It’s still a bad idea.”
“Probably. But we’re doing this for Michaela. Her stability comes first.”
“Right,” he says. “She’s my only priority.”
Only. Got it.