18. Orion
— ? —
Orion
Three weeks after the hospital, Gianna had her follow-up appointment.
She was doing better, much better. The color was back in her cheeks. She was sleeping more. Alex had started giving us longer stretches at night, which meant she wasn’t running on fumes anymore.
I was doing better too. Still on the couch, still on probation, but something had eased after the hospital. She let me help without fighting it. Let me make her tea. Let me take Alex for the morning feeds so she could rest.
Small things, but they felt enormous.
Sometimes, when she passed behind me in the kitchen, her hand would brush my shoulder. Barely a touch, probably accidental. But I catalogued each one like a man dying of thirst counting drops of rain.
“I can drive myself,” she said that morning, looking for her keys. “It’s just a checkup.”
“I know you can. But I want to come.” I grabbed the keys from the counter where she’d left them and held them out. “If that’s okay.”
She studied my face for a moment. Then she took the keys.
Her fingers brushed mine in the exchange. Neither of us acknowledged it but both of us noticed.
“Fine. But you’re staying in the waiting room.”
“Obviously.”
What she didn’t know was that the Cliff board was sitting down at 10 o’clock for its first full meeting under my mother. The restructuring, new reporting lines. My name coming off everything.
Robertson had called twice the night before. The board wanted to hear from me before they signed off, he said. Whether I intended to come back. Whether there was anything worth leaving a door open for. Nobody was promising anything. My mother had been clear in that kitchen.
He’d asked what could possibly matter more than that room. I’d said my wife’s doctor’s appointment.
The silence on the other end of the phone had been deafening.
I hadn’t told Gianna. Because this wasn’t about proving something to her. It wasn’t about earning points or demonstrating how much I’d changed.
It was just about being there.
The waiting room of the OB office was like every waiting room everywhere with their uncomfortable chairs and a TV playing something nobody was watching.
Gianna went back for her appointment. I sat down with Alex’s carrier at my feet. He was asleep, one fist jammed against his cheek, completely unbothered by the fluorescent lights.
“Your mom is incredible,” I told him quietly.
“In case you were wondering. She’s the best person I know, and I almost ruined everything, and now I’m sitting in a waiting room trying to be the kind of man who deserves her.
” I paused. “You probably can’t understand any of this.
But I’m telling you anyway, because I need the practice. ”
Alex slept on, unimpressed by my confessions.
My phone rang. Robertson.
I silenced it.
Then a text. Where are you? Board meeting started 20 min ago. You’re supposed to be here to discuss documents you’ll be handing over.
I typed back. Handle it without me.
The response came immediately. They sign off in an hour. If you’re not here, that’s the answer.
I looked at the phone. Then I turned it to silent and put it in my pocket.
The appointment took about forty-five minutes. Gianna came out looking relieved, which made something in my chest unclench.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“All good. Doctor says I’m healing perfectly.”
“Good. That’s good.”
We walked out to the parking lot, Alex’s carrier swinging from my hand. The Texas sun was bright, the kind of clear spring day that reminded you why people moved here in the first place.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it.
“You keep getting calls,” Gianna said.
“It’s nothing important.”
She gave me a look but didn’t push. We were almost to the truck when my phone rang again. This time I pulled it out to silence it, but not fast enough.
Gianna looked at the screen too and saw Robertson’s name. Saw the preview of his text. They’re closing it out. Last chance.
Her steps slowed.
“Closing what out?” she said quietly.
I shoved the phone in my pocket. “Don’t worry about it.”
But she’d stopped walking. She was looking at me with that sharp focus she got when she was putting pieces together. I’d seen that look during our marriage, usually right before she figured out something I’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“The board meeting is today,” she said.
“Gianna, no-”
“They wanted you there.” She was working through it out loud, her voice getting quieter with each realization. “And you skipped it. To sit in a waiting room while I had a routine checkup.”
There wasn’t anything to say.
“You weren’t going to tell me.” She was looking at me differently now. “You were just going to let me think this was a normal morning. Let me think you had nothing better to do than drive me to a doctor’s appointment.”
“It wasn’t about-”
“You were willing to lose your chance at the company,” she said slowly, “and you weren’t even going to mention it. You were just going to be here. Like it was nothing.”
The parking lot was quiet around us. The sun was warm on my face.
“It is nothing,” I said. “Compared to being here. It’s nothing.”
She stood there for a long moment, not moving, barely breathing. I watched her process it. Watched her weigh what I’d done against everything I’d failed to do before.
“Singapore,” she finally said, “you chose work.” She paused, and something in her expression softened. “You didn’t today. I noticed. I notice everything now.”
She turned and walked to the truck without another word. I stood there for a second, heart pounding, not sure what had just happened. Then I followed her.
I was buckling Alex into his car seat when the phone buzzed one more time. I read it over the top of the truck.
It’s done. Your name’s off everything. Sorry, man.
I waited for the panic to hit, the regret. The desperate need to fix it, to fight it, to claw my way back to the thing I’d spent my entire adult life building.
It didn’t come. I put the phone in the cupholder, face-down, and got in.
We pulled out of the parking lot in silence. I was trying to figure out what to say, whether to say anything at all, when I felt her hand on mine.
Just her fingers, light on my knuckles where they rested on the center console. Like she was testing whether it was allowed.
My heart stopped. Then restarted at twice its normal speed. I turned my hand over and let her palm settle against mine.
She didn’t pull away.
We drove like that for a while, neither of us speaking. The radio was off. The only sound was the road under the tires and Alex making soft sounds in his car seat.
Then her fingers curled around mine intentionally.
The first time she’d reached for me since I’d moved onto her couch.
I kept my eyes on the road and kept my breathing steady. Didn’t make a big deal of it, even though my heart was beating so hard I was sure she could hear it.
Her thumb traced a small circle on my palm, probably unconscious, but definitely devastating.
We were two blocks from the apartment when her phone lit up in her lap. She glanced down. I saw the name before she could turn it over.
Demi.
Her hand slid out of mine.