CHAPTER FIVE #2
“I am capable of believing several things.”
Graham's phone vibrated against the table.
Taryn's name appeared.
He turned the phone facedown.
Evelyn continued discussing baby names without noticing. Laurel looked at the dark screen while Graham reached beneath the table and placed his hand on her knee.
He had chosen not to answer.
The thought warmed her more than it should have. A declined call did not erase the office, the lipstick, or the months of denial, but it represented a boundary Graham had drawn without Laurel demanding one.
“Charles was your grandfather,” Evelyn told Graham.
“Charles Weller sounds like a man who complains about newspaper delivery.”
“Your grandfather did complain about newspaper delivery.”
“Then I've made my case.”
Evelyn laughed until she needed to remove her glasses and wipe them.
The nursery discussion began during dessert. Graham favored pale green because the room overlooked the garden. Laurel wanted warm yellow. Evelyn opposed both, declared that babies deserved color, and produced a deep blue swatch from her handbag, setting it above the ultrasound photograph.
“This one. Blue belongs to everyone. The sky has never complained.”
By the time Evelyn left, the family room table was covered with photographs, paint cards, and a list of names no one entirely approved.
Graham walked his mother to her car. When he returned, Laurel was gathering the samples.
“Leave those.”
“Your mother will come back tomorrow and add wallpaper.”
“I've already told the decorator not to accept instructions from her.”
“She'll bribe him.”
“She has tried.”
Graham took the samples from Laurel and placed them on the sideboard. His smile faded as he studied her.
“You're tired.”
“A little.”
He touched her cheek. The tenderness no longer appeared borrowed from the excitement of the clinic. It had settled into the ordinary space between them.
“I've been thinking about what I said before we found out.”
Laurel knew immediately which words he meant.
Graham looked toward the ultrasound photograph on the table. “I blamed you.”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn't have.”
She waited.
“I was frustrated. Every month ended the same way, and I couldn't solve it. I thought if the doctors identified a cause, at least we could fix something.”
“You decided the cause was me.”
“I know.”
The admission came with visible discomfort. Graham was accustomed to acknowledging errors that could be converted into better outcomes. Regret without a solution gave him nowhere to direct his attention.
“I was under pressure from the company,” he continued. “The expansion, the acquisition, the board. Then we came home to another negative test, and I handled it badly.”
Laurel looked at him. “It wasn't one bad evening.”
“No.”
“You missed appointments. You told me Dr. Kessler was hiding the truth. You behaved as if I were refusing to give you something.”
Graham rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “I was cruel.”
The word mattered because she had not supplied it for him.
“I am sorry.”
Laurel wanted him to mention the separate rooms. Taryn. The way he taught her to distrust what she heard and saw. His apology reached the part of their marriage connected to infertility and stopped there.
Still, he had named something.
For seven weeks, Graham had come home. He had attended appointments, read books, made soup badly, and listened to their child's heartbeat until Laurel threatened to confiscate his phone. Perhaps change arrived in portions before it became complete.
“I need you to understand what it did to me.”
“I do.”
She was not certain he did, but his hand remained gentle against her face.
“I don't want to be that man with you again.”
“Then don't be.”
Graham bent and kissed her.
The kiss began carefully, giving Laurel time to turn away. She did not. His hand moved from her cheek to the back of her neck, and Laurel leaned into the familiarity of him.
They went upstairs together.
In the bedroom, Graham undressed her with a patience that made her ache. He kissed the places pregnancy had not yet visibly changed and asked whether she was comfortable before allowing his weight closer.
Laurel had forgotten what it felt like to be touched without wondering when his interest would fade. Graham watched her reactions, adjusted when she tensed, and kept one hand linked with hers.
Afterward, she rested against his chest.
Graham traced a slow circle over her abdomen. “Everything will be different.”
Laurel listened to his heartbeat beneath her ear.
“I want to believe that.”
“I'll prove it.”
His phone remained downstairs.
Morning light woke Laurel before the alarm.
Graham slept beside her with one arm across the pillow. She slipped out carefully and went into the bathroom.
Her nightgown lay on the floor where Graham had left it. Laurel picked it up and smiled at the carelessness, a small remnant of a night in which neither of them had treated intimacy as an obligation.
When she returned, Graham's phone vibrated on the dresser.
He must have retrieved it after she fell asleep.
The screen illuminated with Taryn's name and the beginning of a message. Laurel did not touch the phone. She stood close enough to read what the notification revealed.
I understand why you need to perform for her. Just don't forget where you are honest.