11. The Story Moon
Chapter Eleven
The Story Moon
Grant
Ilove Cade’s sister Ellie, and I love that she’s our lawyer, but I fucking hate mediation sessions. It’s not that I think Marie and I don’t need them—God knows, we do—I just hate spending any time with the woman who messed me up the way she did.
I’m not na?ve enough to think I wasn’t at all in the wrong, or that we weren’t incompatible in a fundamental way that was me as well as her—but I didn’t deserve what she did to me, what she said to me. I know I didn’t. I know my worth enough to be sure of that.
We need a neutral party, which Ellie can be, even though I know she likes me more than she likes Marie. We don’t hang out outside of these sessions, so technically, there’s no conflict of interest, but we’re always careful, just in case Marie tries to pull anything.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“So, is there anything new with either of you?” Ellie asks, tapping her pen on the desk. She gives me a smile, then turns it on Marie, where it tightens slightly.
Sera is playing with her dolls—including her Helen Fisher—in the corner of the room, where Ellie has a small pink plastic table set up for the kids in her mediation sessions.
I lean back in my chair, shaking my head—even though I know I’m lying.
There is something new, and that’s me and Neve.
I know that I should mention it, but there are so many ways it could cause issues—not limited to Marie deciding to use it against me, or a deeper conflict of interests, given that Ellie knows Neve tangentially.
I resolve that there’s no contact between Neve and Sera, and I don’t know if there will be yet (lie), so I can keep it to myself for now.
Marie folds her arms, crosses her legs, and cuts her eyes to me. “Kris is moving in,” she says evenly, as if she’s letting me know what the weather will be like on Thursday. “It’s been a long time coming. Sera already knows him well, so… It’s happening next week. We’re both ready for it.”
I keep my expression carefully neutral, but inside, it’s like the floor drops out from under me. I knew Kris was in the picture, and that it was serious—but moving in?
I can’t parse the weird kind of grief I feel. I don’t want Marie back, but I think there might be an ugly part of me that doesn’t want her to be happy. It’s not even that I don’t want her to be happy without me—I just… don’t want her to be happy when I’m not.
The thought hits like a punch in the chest.
I’m not happy.
Ellie gives Marie a bland nod, scribbling a note in her legal pad.
“Thanks for letting us know,” she says, and I know that’s all she can say.
It’s not her place to speak on the merits of Marie’s relationship, and if Ellie thought Kris moving in would put Sera at risk, she’d say.
She looks up at me. “Grant, any changes on your end?”
I open my mouth, then close it, shaking my head. “Nope.” My hand closes around the arm of the chair. “Nothing’s changed for me.”
Marie looks pleased. I know she is, because she’s got that tight little smile she wears whenever she thinks she’s caught me off guard. I refuse to give her the satisfaction.
Ellie doesn’t push. We run through the rest of the handover protocol, which is the usual hell of dividing up the next few holiday weekends and agreeing to keep the same “neutral pick-up point,” like we’re a pair of high-stakes arms dealers instead of parents just trying to keep up with the best kid on planet Earth.
When we leave, Marie doesn’t even bother saying goodbye to me. I load Sera’s case into the trunk, then buckle her into her booster seat.
We’re barely out of the parking garage before Sera’s singing, voice lilting and sweet, as she bounces her Helen Fisher up and down on her knee. Then she presses her finger to the window, pointing at the sky. “Papa, look! The story moon!”
I bark a laugh, glancing up at the night sky through the windshield to see the crescent moon, hanging low, thin, and bright in the clear sky. “A story moon, bug?”
“Yup!” Sera chirps. “How the moon looks in stories.”
I chuckle to myself. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of her made-up words for things. Marie and I used to call them Sera-isms. Part of me wonders if Marie still calls them that. I still write them down in my notes app. I don’t want to forget them when she stops making them up.
“The story moon,” I echo, and the words catch in my throat.
I let her monologue fill the car, nodding in the right places, feeling something unspool in my chest for the first time all afternoon.
When we get home, Sera helps me make dinner, perched on the same kitchen stool she’s been using since she was two.
She bounces on the balls of her feet, never still.
We make what she calls “green pasta sauce” (spinach pesto), and she insists on taste-testing every ingredient before it goes in the blender.
I can’t stifle my laughter when she tries the lemon juice, hissing at the sour taste.
She draws while I do the dishes—a picture of the moon story she came up with in the car, with her riding a dinosaur’s back, both of them grinning huge. After bath, after pajamas, after two books, she lays her head on my shoulder while I kneel beside her bed to tuck her in.
“Papa, why don’t you have a special friend?”
I freeze. My mind blanks.
“Like Mama has Kris,” she says diplomatically. “Is it because I’m your favorite?”
I swallow hard, then force a smile.
“I’d be a lot more boring if you weren’t,” I say, and that makes her giggle—a high, delighted sound, the kind I never get tired of.
Still, I can see in her eyes that she wants to know the answer to the question.
“Do you want me to have a special friend?” I ask softly, pushing her hair back from her forehead. Her lashes flutter, already half-asleep.
She shrugs, tiny shoulders lifting the blanket. “Only if you want, Papa. You don’t have to. You can just have me and Helen Fisher and green pasta and moons.”
I chuff a watery laugh, closing my eyes for a second because something in my chest squeezes so hard it makes my ribs hurt, but it’s sharp and warm all at once.
“That’s enough for me,” I murmur. “Goodnight, bug.”
She’s asleep before I even close her bedroom door.
It’s almost eight by the time I’m done cleaning up fully, packing away Sera’s little drawings, and lining up her tiny shoes by the door.
The apartment is quiet. My phone sits face down on the counter, and even though I should probably go straight to bed, I end up hovering over it like a fucking teenager, waiting for it to buzz.
I’ve never been a firm believer in magical thinking, but when my phone vibrates, I wonder if it might be time to reconsider.
I hold my breath as I pick it up, trying not to get my hopes up. Trying to convince myself it’s Cade texting me about the PhD proposal meeting tomorrow, or Fia sending over her social media schedule so I can help with her videos on body language.
Nope; it’s her.
Every part of my body relaxes by degrees as I open the thread.
Don’t:
hey stranger. How did changeover go?
sorry for asking, I know it sucks. But I didn’t want to gloss over it either
it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, though
I can’t stop the smile that spreads over my face. I lean on the counter, thumb hovering. Sera’s question runs over and over in my head, and I think about how I lied to Ellie. Sure, nothing has happened yet—but yes, things have changed. I don’t think I can describe exactly how, yet, but they have.
Me:
Yeah, it did suck. But it’s the better of the two. Sera coming back to me instead of going with Marie.
I see no point in not being honest with her.
But I want her to be honest with me, too, so I go out on a limb.
I have to know where I stand. I know it’s going to crush me if she’s been fucking with me—but something tells me Neve hasn’t got it in her to hurt someone on purpose like that, which provides at least a little reassurance.
Me:
Hey, can I ask you something?
Don’t:
of course
Me:
This… whatever this is going on between us right now. It’s not nothing, is it?
The three dots pop up and disappear for a good minute. I think I might hold my breath the entire time, so that by the time a message finally comes back, I almost choke on my next inhale.
Don’t:
no, it’s not nothing
I thought I made that clear from the start
I LIKE you
My heart kicks against my ribs, like it’s trying to get out. I stare at the words, trying to think of something smooth or interesting to respond with, but I’ve got nothing. I don’t do games, I never have, so I just say what I want to ask.
Me:
Why?
The dots flicker in and out of existence, like she’s writing and changing her mind half a dozen times. Then a voice note pops up in the thread. I hesitate before hitting play, knowing this might decimate me.
“Because you’re amazing,” Neve says on a laugh.
Her voice is a little breathless, a lot sincere, and all the way incredulous that I might not believe what she’s saying.
“It actually bums me out that you don’t see yourself the way I do, but maybe that’s a good thing?
Arrogance is a turn-off. But really, you have no idea how attractive you are, do you?
And I’m not just talking about physically—which, by the way, you seriously are.
I want to climb you like a tree, but… I mean all of you.
It’s everything.” She pauses for a moment, like she’s spinning the words through in her head. “How do you not know that?”
The silence hangs for a second, then the recording ends with a click.
I press the back of my hand to my mouth, laughing quietly into my skin because the truth is, I can’t remember the last time anyone said anything like that to me. I’m not sure anybody has ever spoken about me like that.
It’s kind of a downer to think about it, actually.
Instead, I think about her. I think about her seeing me that way.
I want to believe she’s telling the truth. That I could ever be that person for her—or anyone, but especially for her—even for a second.
Amazing.