Chapter 2 - After Her Shift
Elizabeth did not get into Daniel's car immediately. She inspected the rear-facing child seat that his driver had borrowed from the restaurant's owner, checked its installation herself, and refused the front passenger seat until she was satisfied Josie would be safe. Daniel stood in the Chicago night with his hands in his pockets, feeling like a visitor outside a house he used to own.
"You used to trust me to drive you across three states," he said before he could stop himself.
She clicked the last buckle into place. "I used to trust you with a lot of things."
He had earned that answer. "Fair enough."
A light rain began as the car pulled from the curb. Elizabeth sat beside Josie in the back, leaving Daniel alone in front. It was a simple arrangement, completely practical, and it revealed more about their new relationship than any speech could have. Outside, the river reflected the city's office towers. Daniel recognized two buildings his company financed. He had attended ribbon cuttings for both. He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a walk beside the river just because the night was beautiful.
"Eleven months," Elizabeth said suddenly.
He turned slightly. "What?"
"She's eleven months old. Since you're trying to calculate it without staring at your watch."
His heart began to pound. Twenty months backward led him to October, to a night after their divorce that he'd put inside a locked compartment of his memory. He remembered arriving at Elizabeth's apartment during a thunderstorm, intending to return a box of photographs. They had argued for an hour, apologized for another, and ended up sitting on the kitchen floor, laughing at an old picture of their disastrously assembled honeymoon tent.
"October," he murmured.
Elizabeth looked out her window. "You remember."
"Of course I remember."
"I wasn't sure you would. You left before sunrise."
Daniel flinched. He had left a note saying he didn't want to confuse things. At the time, he'd considered that considerate. Now he imagined Elizabeth waking up, reaching across an empty mattress, and finding the neat little message of a man too frightened to risk a real conversation.
"I was afraid we'd hurt each other again," he said.
"So you made the choice for both of us. You always did have a talent for that."
Josie woke and made an indignant sound. Elizabeth immediately lowered her voice and touched the baby's cheek. The child settled. Daniel watched in the rearview mirror and understood that there were eleven months of nights, mornings, and tiny disasters in which he had played no part. Whatever he'd earned professionally during that time suddenly seemed easy compared with the work Elizabeth had done alone.
"Tell me about her," he said.
Elizabeth eyed him cautiously. "She's a person, Daniel, not a quarterly report."
"I know. I'm asking who she is."
Something in his tone made her relent. "She hates bananas. Loves blueberries. She can stand if she's holding on to something, but she's convinced she's ready to walk. She laughs whenever the upstairs neighbor sneezes."
"The neighbor sneezes that often?"
"You'd be surprised."
Against all probability, they both smiled. It lasted two seconds. Elizabeth looked away first.
"Why is she with you at work?" he asked carefully.
"My sitter's son got sick. My regular backup moved to Milwaukee last week. Mrs. Alvarez said I could finish clearing empty tables in the private dining room if I kept Josie away from the kitchen." She rubbed her forehead. "I know it's not ideal. Before you begin offering solutions, I've been looking for a different job."
"I wasn't going to lecture you."
"You used to lecture me about what other people might think."
He remembered. During their marriage, when she volunteered at a neighborhood food cooperative instead of attending a networking event, he'd told her it was bad optics. The phrase tasted rancid now.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For which part?"
"Apparently, there's a waiting list."
She made a sound that might once have become a laugh. Instead, she leaned back and closed her eyes.
The car stopped outside her apartment building, an old brick walk-up on a street lined with late-night laundromats and small groceries. The lobby light flickered. Daniel looked at the steep entrance steps and resisted the urge to start calculating how quickly he could find her a better address. His urgent desire to fix things might feel generous, but it could become another way of telling Elizabeth she wasn't capable of directing her own life.
"May I carry the car seat up?" he asked.
"Yes. The stairs are awful."
Inside, her apartment smelled faintly of lavender soap and warm milk. Children's books occupied a makeshift shelf constructed from painted crates. A secondhand sofa sat beneath a framed watercolor Elizabeth had painted in college. Daniel had forgotten she'd kept it. He had remembered her giving it away when they moved into their penthouse because its colors didn't match the decor.
There was a little kitchen table with two mismatched chairs and a third seat that was really a high chair. He couldn't look away from it. Someone had assembled a whole life here without him.
Elizabeth settled Josie in her crib behind a folding screen. The little girl protested twice, then fell asleep to the quiet melody of a battery-powered mobile. Elizabeth returned and folded her arms.
"You have seven minutes."
Daniel sat only when she gestured toward the sofa. "I don't know what answer I'm entitled to ask for," he said. "But I need the truth."
She stared at the white marks on her hands where she'd washed dishes too often. "I told myself I'd explain one day. Every time I thought about calling, I remembered another empty chair at another dinner."
"That doesn't mean I wouldn't have wanted her."
"I know that now. I didn't know it then."
He leaned forward. "Elizabeth. Is Josephine my daughter?"
Her mouth trembled. She nodded, then forced herself to speak.
"Yes. Josie is yours."
For a long moment, Daniel heard nothing except the mobile turning behind the screen. No joy arrived cleanly. It came tangled with anger, shame, and a grief so new that he couldn't yet give it a name. He wanted to cross the room and look at Josie again, count every eyelash, stay until morning.
He stayed seated.
"You should have told me," he whispered.
"I know," Elizabeth said, tears glistening at last. "But please don't confuse that mistake with proof I haven't loved her enough."
Daniel looked at the little table, at the tiny spoon beside the sink, at the laundry drying above the heater. Then he looked back at the woman who had apparently carried his child and her own heartbreak into a future he'd been too busy to imagine.
May you like
"I wouldn't," he said. "Not after seeing this."
He wanted forgiveness. She needed security. The distance between those two desires was the first thing he would have to learn to cross without demanding that she meet him halfway.
