28. Mia
Mia
Reed is at the counter when I come through from the back.
I hear the bell at seven forty-three, between the first rush and the second, and I almost don’t come out because at this hour on a Monday it’s usually a regular who already knows where the paper bags are.
But when I don’t hear anything else, no voice and no order called, I come through the kitchen doorway with flour on my forearms and my hair half up and I stop.
He’s in a dark jacket, no tie, his hands at his sides. He hasn’t shaved. He looks tired and certain at the same time, which is not a combination I’ve seen on him before.
He puts an envelope on the counter between us.
I cross my arms and wait.
“This medical bill came with Vanessa PI’s report a while ago,” he says.
“Your name is on it, but I never opened it.” He holds my gaze.
“I’m giving it back because everything in it is yours and I don’t need to know what’s inside.
I had it for weeks, kept it closed, and I want you to know that.
” He presses both hands flat on the counter.
“I’m trying to trust you. I have no right to ask you to believe that after Saturday.
But this is the only thing I have that shows I’m trying, so here it is. ”
I look at the envelope. My name on a typed label. The clinic address in the top corner. A date stamp from eighteen months ago.
I know what’s inside before I open it.
My thumbnail finds the seal. I pull out the single page, read it once, and set it face-down on the counter.
“It’s a medical bill,” I confirm. “From a clinic.”
Reed says nothing.
“I had an abortion,” I tell him. “But not because I didn’t want the baby.
The pregnancy went wrong early, and I had to make a decision I didn’t want to make in a waiting room by myself with nobody who knew I was there.
” I keep my eyes on the counter for a second, then bring them up to his.
“I never told anyone except Juno. I’m not ashamed of it, but I also didn’t owe an explanation to a single person on this earth.
” I tap the page. “That’s what’s in the envelope. That’s what Vanessa had on me.”
He’s very still.
“But she never used it,” I say.
“No,” he says.
“Why not?”
He takes a second. “I don’t know. Maybe because even she has a line she won’t cross. Or maybe that part of her is still somewhere in there.”
I look at the bill on the counter and think about Vanessa at the engagement party in her silver dress, about the chocolate she brings Harper in the gold wrapper, the one Harper eats even though she doesn’t like it.
People are never just one thing. I know that, but it doesn’t make Saturday hurt less.
“I would never plan a pregnancy to trap you,” I say.
“I’m twenty-eight years old, I have forty-three dollars in my personal account on a good week, and I’m terrified of this one that actually happened by accident.
” I will my hands to stop shaking. “I’m not running biological chess moves, Reed.
I don’t have the energy for it. I barely keep the lights on.
That’s what you missed when you asked me that question. I’m too scared for any of it.”
“I know,” he says. “I knew it when I said it.”
“Then why?”
He looks at his hands. “Because it was the cruelest thing I could reach for and I was cornered and that’s where I go when I’m cornered.
” He sighs and meets my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mia.
I don’t need you to forgive me right now.
I just want you to know that I’m sorry. It’s true and you deserve to hear it. ”
I pick up the cloth by the sink and wipe down the back counter, because I need to do something with my hands or I’m going to say things I’m not ready to say.
“Tell me about the divorce settlement,” I say instead.
“Vanessa wanted full custody,” he says. “I had everything I needed to fight it. The affair, the dates, Harper being home for most of it.” He stops.
“Her mother has been sick for a long time. The treatment isn’t cheap and it doesn’t stop.
It had been coming out of our joint accounts for years.
” His jaw tightens. “My lawyers told her that the money covering her mother’s treatment might need to be reviewed if things got complicated in court. ”
I stop wiping.
“You threatened to pull her mother’s medical coverage,” I say.
“My lawyers implied it,” he says. “But I let them.”
I set the cloth down.
“She had to choose between her mother and her daughter,” I say.
“Yes.”
“That’s what you used,” I say.
“Yes.” He doesn’t try to soften it or come up with an excuse. “I told you I was good at winning. That’s what it looked like.”
“Did you mean it?” I ask next. “What you said at the press conference. That you weren’t always right either.”
“Every word of it,” he says.
I pick the medical bill up and fold it back into the envelope. I put it on the shelf below the register where I keep the lease and the supplier invoices, because it belongs with the things that are mine, and it is mine, and nobody should use it against me in the first place.
I turn back to face him. “I’m pregnant.”
The air in the bakery changes.
Reed goes still in a way I haven’t seen before, his body absorbing a fact that has just shifted the floor under everything, and he stands there with his hands on my counter and his face open and I watch it move through him.
Then he comes around the counter, crossing to where I’m standing, and he goes down on one knee on my bakery floor.
There’s no camera this time and no Celeste on the phone. We don’t have a live stream running. It’s just him on the floor of my bakery at seven forty-five on a Monday morning with his hands open, his eyes on mine.
“I want to marry you,” he tells me. “I don’t want to do it to appease the judge and I don’t want to do it for the board.
I don’t care about the contract or the optics anymore.
” His eyes hold mine. “I want to marry you because you are the first person I’ve met in a very long time who made me want to be better than I am, and I have done a terrible job of showing that, and I’m asking you to let me spend whatever time you need proving it.
” He takes a deep breath. “We can have a long engagement or a short one. We can take as much time as you want. You set the pace and I’ll be there.
I know what you’re worth, Mia. I just needed you to know that I know it. ”
“I believe you’re sorry,” I say. “But I need to ask you something first.”
He waits.
“You said that when you’re cornered you reach for the cruelest thing available.” I hold his gaze. “What happens the next time we argue and you’re cornered? Because there will be a next time. There always is.”
He’s quiet for long enough that I know he’s really thinking about it.
“I won’t do it again,” he says.
“That’s not good enough,” I tell him. “I need to know you understand why. Not just that it hurt me. Why it was wrong.”
He looks at his hands on my counter. “Because you’d never do it to me. Not once, not ever, no matter how cornered you were. And I knew that when I said it.” He raises his eyes to mine. “That’s what made it unforgivable. And I’m asking you to forgive it anyway.”
My hands are at my sides and my throat is burning.
I look at him on my bakery floor and I think about the first morning I came down the hall in his shirt and Harper was already arguing with him about the eggs, and how his ears went pink when I caught him watching me pour the sprinkles. I think about all the mornings between that one and this one.
“Get up,” I say. “Even though I mopped the tiles, they’re still covered with flour.”
He smiles but stays right where he is.
“Reed.”
“I’m not in a rush,” he says.
I blink, then an unexpected laugh escapes me.
“Get up,” I say again, my hand reaching for his.
“Is that a yes?” he asks, refusing to be pulled up.
“Yes, it’s a yes,” I tell him, and he gets up.
He gets up and cups my face in both hands. There is no camera behind us, no contract in a drawer, and no countdown running. He kisses me in my bakery with flour on my apron, on his knee, on his hands, and I stop thinking about everything that almost kept us from getting here.