TWENTY-EIGHT
HANNAH
For the next forty minutes, I checked in families while Grace moved through the gym with Daniel trailing far enough behind to annoy her less.
She returned carrying a navy T-shirt over one arm.
“They only had a large.”
“It’ll shrink.”
“That’s what Dad said. Then he said not enough to make it fit, which was less helpful.”
I smiled before I could decide whether I wanted to. “Wear it over a long-sleeved shirt.”
“That was his second answer.”
She shoved the shirt into her folder badly enough to bend two forms.
“Can I go find Mia?” she asked. “Her mom said they’re by the art tables.”
“Tell your dad where you’re going.”
“I did. He said I have twenty minutes.”
She disappeared into the crowd.
At seven, the gym became louder as families rushed to finish. Someone dropped a metal water bottle on the bleachers. A child began crying near the music display.
Across the room, Grace and Mia stood at the Thursday table with Daniel. The adviser said something that erased both girls’ smiles.
Grace found me five minutes later.
“The first meeting is the same night as Mia’s birthday dinner.”
“Can you miss it?”
“Not if I want a place in the activity.” She looked toward Daniel. “Dad says it’s my decision, which is an annoying answer.”
“It usually is.”
“I thought he’d tell me which one mattered more.”
Daniel had spent years letting me decide which conflict mattered, then living inside the answer. Now he stood beside the trophy case with Grace’s water bottle and waited.
“What did he actually say?” I asked.
“That I could be mad whichever thing I picked.”
It was not an efficient answer. It solved nothing. It left Grace with the grief that belonged to her choice instead of taking it away so he could feel useful.
“He’s right,” I said.
“You’re both terrible.” She turned toward Mia. “I’m picking the activity. She says she’ll save cake.”
She walked back before I could praise her for making the sensible decision. Daniel listened while she told him. He did not check a calendar or remind her of a deadline. He only opened his arms.
Grace hesitated, glanced around the crowded gym, and stepped into them anyway.
The hug lasted three seconds. It was awkward and public and entirely theirs.
The last family left my table at seven thirty. I packed the extra pens while the custodian folded chairs. Daniel and Grace walked over together.
“We’re heading out,” Grace said. “Dad says I need actual dinner even though I had the granola bar.”
“A harsh policy.”
“He made pasta before we came.”
“You asked for pasta,” Daniel said.
“That isn’t the issue.”
“I’m afraid to ask what the issue is.”
Grace rolled her eyes and leaned across the table to hug me. “I’ll send the schedule when we get home.”
“Do your math first.”
“I have a plan.”
“Does the plan include math?”
She stepped backward. “Eventually.”
Daniel caught the folder before it slid out of her bag. Grace made a production of enunciating, “Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, Grace.”
She joined Mia near the exit for one last conversation. Daniel rested the battered folder against his side.
“She’ll regret missing the birthday when the meeting is boring,” he said.
“Probably.”
“I wanted to tell her to pick Mia.”
The admission surprised me. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because then she could be angry at me instead of at the fact that two things mattered.” He rubbed the paper cut across his knuckle. “I like it better when she’s angry at me.”
For a second, we stood across the table with the clear plastic box between us.
His hair was shorter than he had worn it when we were married.
His blue shirt was rolled to his forearms, and there was ink along the side of his hand.
I remembered those hands against my back, the pressure of his palm when he slept, the blind reach across a restaurant table.
The memories came without permission and without instructions.
Daniel looked toward the exit. “Good night, Hannah.”
“Good night.”
He crossed the gym at the same unhurried pace. Grace finished with Mia and caught up to him near the doors, reaching for the folder. He returned it, pointed to the shirt sticking out of the top, and waited while she shoved it farther into her bag. Then they went into the hallway together.
I put the lid on the pen box.
I could let the doors close and wait until a calendar required our next conversation.
I came around the table.
“Daniel.”
My voice carried farther than I intended in the emptied gym.
He stopped in the hallway and turned. Grace stopped too.
I walked toward them while the custodian rolled a cart behind me. I had no excuse ready.
“Can you give us a minute?” Daniel asked Grace.
She looked from him to me. “I’ll be by the trophy case.”
She went down the hall with her phone already in her hand. She did not smile at me or ask what I wanted. She simply gave us the minute and sat beneath the framed team photographs.
Daniel waited near the gym doors.
Up close, the ink on his hand was blue. The paper cut crossed the knuckle he had rubbed while admitting he wanted Grace’s anger because it was easier to carry.
A practical question rose to protect me. I let it die.
“Do you have time for coffee?” I asked.
Daniel’s fingers tightened once on the folder. “Now?”
“Yes. If Grace’s okay with it. There’s a place near the school.”
He glanced toward the trophy case, then back at me. “I have time.”
“I’ll check with Grace,” he said. “If she wants to go home, I can drop her off and meet you there.”
“All right.”
He walked to the trophy case and sat beside our daughter to ask what she wanted to do. I remained by the gym doors, holding nothing for either of them.