Chapter 20 One Table Between Them
Maren chose the public library because it had rules no one in the Strathe family had written.
No raised voices.
No food near the computers.
Meeting rooms reserved in ninety-minute blocks.
The Greyhaven Public Library sat two streets from the harbor in a brick building with green trim and a ramp that had clearly been added by people who cared more about function than symmetry.
The meeting room smelled like dust, toner, and children's craft glue.
A poster on the wall reminded patrons that summer reading sign-ups began in June, though it was still March and the rain had made everything outside the windows look pewter.
Maren arrived fifteen minutes early with Lenora on video call, Reeve in the lobby pretending to read a magazine about wooden boats, and Marta across the street at the bakery with instructions to call the library if Maren did not text every twenty minutes.
This, apparently, was what support looked like when it had teeth.
The purpose of the meeting was legal.
That was what Maren kept telling herself.
Callum needed to sign a sworn statement for Lenora's file: Octavia Strathe did not represent him in matters concerning Maren or the pregnancy; he had not authorized Graham Pell's approach; he acknowledged paternity; he agreed not to seek Maren's medical information without written consent; he would route any custody or support matter through counsel unless Maren initiated otherwise.
Clean documents. Clear boundaries.
One table.
Thirty minutes.
Lenora's face filled Maren's laptop screen from Salem, red glasses low on her nose. "You can end the meeting at any point."
"I know."
"If he becomes emotional, that does not create an emergency you must solve."
"I know."
"If you become emotional, that does not mean you made a mistake."
Maren studied her.
Lenora shrugged. "I contain multitudes."
The knock came at 2:00 exactly.
Of course it did.
Maren's body reacted before her mind gave permission. Her heartbeat jumped. Her palms went damp. A ridiculous, humiliating awareness moved through her: the door, the distance to it, the sweater she had chosen, the fact that her hair was still wind-tangled from the walk.
She hated that love left muscle memory.
"Come in," Lenora said from the laptop, brisk as a judge.
Callum entered.
For a moment, Maren forgot the room.
He wore a dark coat over a charcoal sweater, no suit, no tie.
The absence of armor made him look more tired, not softer.
There were shadows beneath his eyes. His hair was shorter than when she left, like he had asked his barber to make him resemble a man capable of decisions.
He stopped just inside the door and did not look at Lenora, the papers, the table.
He looked at Maren.
He did not look at her stomach.
He looked at her face.
That nearly undid her more than if he had stared where curiosity wanted to go.
"Maren," he said.
Her name in his voice did what it had always done.
it did something else: it met the chain on the door and stopped.
"Callum."
He closed the door behind him but remained standing.
"Thank you for agreeing to this."
"I agreed because the documents are useful."
"I know."
Lenora cleared her throat. "Mr. Strathe, sit."
Callum looked at the laptop.
If he was surprised by the command, he hid it well. He sat in the chair opposite Maren, leaving the table between them untouched.
Lenora reviewed the terms with surgical efficiency.
Callum did not argue.
He did not argue once.
When she reached the clause about medical privacy, he said, "Add that any accidental insurance notifications sent to me will be deleted without review and reported to counsel."
Lenora paused, then typed. "Acceptable."
Maren looked down at her hands.
There were small ways a person could become dangerous to your anger. Not by grand speeches. By noticing the exact door they had once used and closing it themselves.
When Lenora finished, Callum signed where instructed. Blue ink, because the library pen happened to be blue and Maren refused to make meaning of that even as meaning stood in the corner waving.
He scanned the pages with the portable app Sienna had probably installed for him and emailed them to Lenora before she asked.
"Efficient," Lenora said.
"I have been accused."
"Efficiency is morally neutral. People are the problem."
Callum almost smiled.
The almost was worse.
Lenora looked at Maren. "Do you want me to stay on?"
Yes, Maren thought.
No, something else answered.
"Give us ten minutes," she said.
Lenora's expression did not change. "Text me if you need me back."
The screen went dark.
Silence entered the meeting room.
Neither hospital silence nor townhouse silence. Library silence, full of muffled footsteps outside and the faint squeak of a cart moving down an aisle.
Callum sat very still.
Maren appreciated that.
She resented appreciating it.
"You look better," he said, then winced. "No. Sorry. That sounded like an assessment."
"It was."
"I meant..." He stopped. Looked at his hands. "I am glad you are standing."
That was so awkwardly honest that Maren almost smiled.
"I'm sitting."
His eyes lifted.
For one dangerous second, they were both nearly the people who used to laugh in bed over badly phrased sentences and burnt toast.
the moment passed.
"Are you in pain?" he asked.
Maren considered refusing the question.
"Not today."
The relief moved through his face before he could hide it. He did not thank her for the answer. Good. Gratitude could become another hook.
"I watched the council presentation," he said.
Her spine straightened.
"Sienna sent it," he added quickly. "I did not look for it."
"That is not the part I object to."
"I know. I did not donate."
"I know."
"You were extraordinary."
The words landed too softly.
Maren looked toward the rain-streaked window. "Don't."
He went quiet.
"I don't know what to do with your praise," she said. "I wanted it for years. That makes it hard to trust now."
Callum's throat moved.
"I understand."
She turned back to him.
"Do you?"
He did not answer quickly.
That was new too.
"No," he said. "Not fully. I understand that I missed something I should have seen. I understand that praise now may feel like grief with better manners. I do not understand what it was like to live inside the absence I made."
Maren held his gaze.
It was a good answer.
No comfort there.
Good.
"I have a question," she said.
"Anything."
"Don't say anything."
He closed his mouth.
She folded her hands together on the table because otherwise they might shake.
"If there had been no insurance code, no article, no proof. If I had told you I was pregnant and bleeding, and Isolde said I was using it to manipulate you, would you have believed me?"
There.
The question had lived inside her since the hospital, cold and exact.
Callum did not look away.
She wished he would.
"That night?" he asked.
"Yes."
The silence changed shape.
Outside the meeting room, someone laughed in the children's section. A bright, careless sound.
Callum's face did not collapse. Men like him were trained against collapse. But something in him yielded, and Maren saw the cost of the truth before he spoke it.
"I don't know," he said.
It hurt anyway.
Even though she had expected it.
Even though a lie would have been worse.
Maren nodded once.
Callum leaned forward slightly, then stopped himself. "I want to say yes."
"I know."
"But I had already made a habit of needing evidence when you were asking for trust."
Her eyes burned.
She looked down at the table. It was laminate, scratched with initials and one small blue star drawn in marker by someone who had ignored library rules.
"That is why I left," she said.
"I know."
"No. That is why. Not Isolde. Not your mother. Not even the seventeen calls." She lifted her eyes. "I left because if I stayed, I would spend the rest of my life collecting evidence that I deserved to be believed."
His face went pale.
Good, she thought, and hated that she still wanted to reach for him.
"Maren," he said. "I am sorry."
The words were stripped bare.
No defense around them.
She let them sit there.
Neither accepted nor rejected.
He did not ask which.
That mattered too.
The timer on Maren's phone vibrated: twenty-minute check-in for Marta.
She silenced it.
Callum stood immediately. "I should go."
She also stood, because remaining seated felt too intimate.
He put on his coat.
At the door, he paused.
"May I ask one thing about the baby?"
Every muscle in her tightened.
He saw it and added, "You can say no."
"Ask."
His hand rested on the doorknob. Not gripping. Resting.
"Do you have what you need for the next appointment?"
He did not write can I come, when is it, or did you hear the heartbeat.
Do you have what you need?
Maren breathed.
"Yes."
He nodded.
"Good."
he left.
Maren stood in the meeting room until she heard the library's front door open and close.
Only then did she sit down.
Her phone buzzed.
Marta:
You alive?
Maren read the message again.
typed:
Yes.
A second later:
He behaved?
Maren took in the signed documents on the table, the empty chair across from her, the blue star scratched into the laminate.
She typed:
Yes.
That was not forgiveness.
But it was evidence.