The meal proceeds with Margaret chatting about neighborhood gossip, recipes, and how Blake's been working too hard. I nod in all the right places, pass the parmesan when asked, but every minute is like walking a tightrope.
Beckett slurps noodles enthusiastically, sauce speckling his chin. "Mimi, want to see my dragon-rocket?"
Twenty excruciating minutes later, I stand to excusemyself. "It's been a fun night. Thanks for the dessert,Margaret. I need to get home."
"You should stay, Warren. I'm leaving. I'm sure Janie could use your help getting Beckett in bed."
The door clicks shut behind her, and Janie and I exhale simultaneously. Our eyes meet across the table—relief, fear, maybe some delirium for good measure. Beckett chatters on, blissfully oblivious to the secret hanging between us.
Janie and I both crack up at the situation.
"What’s so funny?" Beckett asks.
"Nothing, honey. It’s time for bed. Upstairs."
He groans but slides off his chair, thumping toward the stairs with his dragon clutched to his chest. Janie trails after him, and I hear their voices drift down—her reading, his insistent corrections when she skips a line.
Upstairs, the muffled sound of Beckett’s dragon story fades at last. The creak of his bed, Janie’s low murmur, and then the hush of silence that only comes once he’s out cold.
When she steps back into the kitchen, her shoulders sag like she’s dropped a hundred pounds. She pours herself a splash of wine, then leans on the counter beside me.
For the first time all night, it’s just us. The kind of quiet that’s fragile, almost sacred, lingers.
I run a dish towel over the last blue ceramic plate I washed from dinner. Our shoulders brush as she passes it to me, our fingers connecting briefly in the exchange. Something in the routine feels dangerously right.
I duck into the restroom down the hall, rinsing the soap from my hands and catching my reflection in the mirror. I look lighter than I feel, like this could almost pass for normal.
When I return, the air has shifted. Janie stands at thesink, glass in hand, her posture rigid where moments ago it was loose and tired.
Her voice cuts the silence, softer than usual but edged with steel. “We can’t keep doing this, Warren. Sneaking, hiding, and pretending aren't sustainable. And it's not healthy.”
My hand rests on the cool granite. I guess Margaret dropping by has her all tied up.
I don’t look at her.
“I’m not asking for a public announcement.” She sets the glass down, water circling the drain in a small whirlpool. “But I need to know there’s a direction here. Something more than ‘just be happy now.’”
Everything she's saying makes sense. It's reasonable. Logical. And yet something inside me rebels against being cornered, against being forced to define something I'm still processing.
"Warren?" Her voice has an edge now. "Say something."
The anger I've tucked away since we stepped back into this rises in my throat. I look at her with hurt disguised as anger.
"You kept my son from me for five years," I say, my voice low but sharp. "And now you want me to make life-altering decisions in a matter of weeks?"
The words hang between us, sharper than I intended. I don't apologize. Can't.
Janie flinches as if I've struck her. Her hands grip the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening.
"That's not fair," she whispers.
"No." I look directly at her now. "It wasn't fair. None of this has been fair."
The kitchen is suddenly too small for the both of us. The domesticity of the moment is a cruel joke.
This isn't real. It's a fantasy we're playing at, built on a foundation of secrets and lies.
"I'm trying, Janie." My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. "But you can't push this. Not yet."