CHAPTER 13
Mara reheated eggs while Cole told her why unanswered calls frightened him.
It was Thursday morning, one day after the caregiving block. He had returned to pick up the written car-seat specifications their attorneys approved for his vehicle. Ava napped. Neither adult had intended breakfast to become confession.
“His name was Luke,” Cole said.
He sat at Mara’s small kitchen table, shoulders too broad for the chair, coffee untouched between his hands. The left-forearm scar rested beside the chipped bowl Joseph had made in a community pottery class and refused to discuss.
“Your brother.”
Cole nodded. “Two years older. He worked industrial maintenance outside Baton Rouge. Married young. Three kids. He called me after the conference title in my third season.”
Mara knew the public game. Austin had won in overtime. Cole had forced the final turnover. The locker-room footage still appeared in anniversary clips.
“I left my phone in my locker,” he said. “We were celebrating. By the time I saw the call, he had gone back onto the floor because a safety guard was malfunctioning. There was an accident.”
His voice changed, flattening where emotion became too large for inflection.
“He left a voicemail. Nothing dramatic. Said he needed to ask me something about helping with the oldest one’s school. Told me to call when I got free. He died before I listened.”
Mara set the spatula down.
“Cole.”
“Everybody says the call wouldn’t have changed the accident.”
“They’re right.”
“That doesn’t make the silence harmless.”
No. Mara understood the distinction too well.
He stared at the coffee. “After he died, I paid off the house. Covered school. Put money aside. I can do every expensive thing. I can’t answer a phone yesterday.”
Mara sat across from him. “So you stay physically close enough that nothing can happen outside your reach.”
“I try.”
“And when it does?”
“I get angry.”
“Before you grieve.”
His blue eyes lifted. “You make that sound simple.”
“It isn’t. A pattern can be clear and still hard to change.”
He looked toward the hallway where Ava slept. “I saw ten months I couldn’t protect.”
“She wasn’t unprotected.”
“I know.” The answer came immediately. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It is part of what you felt.”
Cole accepted the correction. “Yes.”
Mara plated the eggs and placed one serving before him. The act felt intimate in a way sex had once failed to feel, because care now occurred inside a conflict neither could escape through desire.
“My parents had debt when I was growing up,” she said. “Not because they were reckless. My father’s first shop partner stole from the business. Insurance denied part of my mother’s surgery. After that, every helpful offer came with a conversation about what we should do next.”
“Family?”
“Family, banks, church friends. Most meant well. But help changed who got to speak. I watched my parents become grateful before they agreed.”
“I’m not asking gratitude.”
“Intent again.” Mara held his gaze. “When you can solve a problem without feeling the cost, your solution has gravity. Everyone else begins orbiting it.”
He took a bite of eggs, buying time before reaction. “So you kept Ava because asking me meant I might own every decision.”
“I kept trying until I thought you had answered. After that, fear helped me call retreat protection.”
“Would you have told me after she was born?”
The honest answer hurt.
“I told myself I would if something required it.”
“My daughter existing required it.”
“Yes.”
Neither looked away.
Cole’s anger entered his jaw and stayed there. He did not turn it into volume.
“I don’t forgive that yet,” he said.
“I haven’t asked you to.”
“Do you forgive me for not searching?”
“No.”
The word made the room cleaner.
Ava stirred over the monitor, one soft complaint followed by silence.
Cole looked toward it but did not stand.
“That’s her transition sound,” Mara said. “She may resettle.”
He waited. Ava quieted.
The restraint felt like a small answer to the whole morning.
After breakfast, Cole unpacked the car seat he had purchased from Mara’s approved model list. He had not bought the most expensive option after she chose another. They read the manual together on the living-room floor.
“Your truck needs an angle check,” Mara said.
“SUV.”
“It occupies land like a truck.”
“Your father will respect it.”
“My father believes every vehicle made after 1998 contains too many computers.”
Cole smiled. “I like him already.”
They practiced tightening the empty harness. Mara leaned across him to show where the chest clip sat. Her hair brushed his cheek.
The air changed.
Cole’s hand closed around the base instead of her waist. “Mara.”
She looked up.
Desire lived exactly where it had on championship night, older now and complicated by every document between them.
He gave her time to move.
Mara did not.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “I want to kiss you.”
“I know.”
“That’s not a question.”
“No.”
“May I?”
Ava cried from the nursery before Mara answered.
They separated at once.
Mara went to her daughter. Cole remained beside the empty car seat, one hand open on the carpet.
Their first almost-kiss ended with both of them aware that parenthood had erased nothing.