When Jen joins Mia and Alex along the water’s edge, Alex makes no move to leave. They don’t act how they often have the past two years, like it’s a game of tag, one parent in, one parent out. My heart squeezes as I see Mia smile up at both of them, tugging Jen down to her and Alex’s level.
Maybe I shouldn’t look, maybe it’s private, but I can’t help but watch and admire. I have no idea what it’s like to sever every fiber of your relationship while having a kid who still weaves you together. I’ve watched the past two years as Alex and Jen have tried to stitch parts of their lives back together, for Mia’s sake—Christmasthat first year, then Easter, then a joint birthday party, as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. I’ve seen them both at more of her soccer games this past spring. Even talking outside for a few minutes, exchanging notes, getting up to speed on everything Mia, on custody-change days.
And I’ve seen Mia drinking it all in, soaking it up.
I don’t know what’s ahead, how this is going to go, when I finally work up the courage to talk to Alex, but a rush of peace courses through me as I realize, whatever he wants from me, whatever way I can share life with Alex, I’ll never wish Jen wasn’t part of it—because Mia needs her. She needs her parents, together, kind and loving, whenever and however they can be.
A shadow over me drags me from my thoughts. I peer up, shading my eyes. “Hi, Ethan.”
“Thea.” He lowers to the sand beside me, flips open the cooler lid, and pulls out a water. He doesn’t offer me one. But I didn’t expect him to. Cracking the lid, he squints as he watches Mia, Alex, and Jen down on the wet, packed sand. After two long gulps, he sets the water bottle back in the cooler, then turns and looks at me. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Doesn’t what bother me?”
He nods toward them, the breeze ruffling his hair, his eyes narrowed behind his round tortoiseshell sunglasses. I experience that odd, surreal feeling that comes over me sometimes, when I’m around Ethan for more than a few passing seconds. How bizarre it is that he was someone I swore my life to, someone whose body I drew into mine. Someone I peed in the same bathroom with while he showered, drove to the hospital when his appendix was about to burst.
And now, he’s a stranger to me. Cold and closed off.
“Doesn’t it bother you,” Ethan says, “that no matter how far back you and Alex go,theywill always have this, something they share in a way you can’t. Their daughter.”
For a moment, pain knifes through me. Probably not as Ethan intended, not for some jealousy or desire that I could be Mia’s mom instead of Jen. But becauseIwanted to be a mom. I wanted to have kids. And I have none.
I glance away from him, back to the water, where Mia stands, holding hands with Alex and Jen, as they lift her above a wave, then send her splashing down into it, her head thrown back in laughter, pure joy on her face. Jen smiles at Alex, who meets her eyes, and just briefly, his mouth lifts in a smile, too. The next moment, their eyes are down, but their smiles stay, because of where their eyes are, what they’re focused on. Mia.
Ethan leans in a little, his voice softer, and says, “Think about it, what that means, what she’ll always remind you of—those two, together. Making her, loving each other when they did. Every milestone, every big moment, you’ll have that right in your face.”
Mia shrieks with joy as they lift her over another wave.
I smile as I swipe a tear from my cheek, my gaze fixed on her. And I tell Ethan, “Yes.”
“Yes,what?” he says.
I turn and stare at him. “Yes, I’ve thought about that. And yes, that will be right there, in my face. I hope it’ll be in my face even more, each year.” I wipe away another tear, turning to face him fully.
Ethan looks at me like I’m speaking gibberish.
“It isn’t about us, Ethan. And it isn’t about Alex and Jen, either. It’s abouther—about the fact that the kinder her parents are toward each other, around her, the better off she is. It’s about her needs, asachild.” A sad laugh tumbles out of me. “But you can’t see that, can you? Because you’re just a child yourself.”
Ethan’s shoulders roll back. He stands suddenly, hands shoved in the pockets of his swim trunks, and says, “Come at me all you want, but ask yourself—is this what you really want for the rest of your life?”
“Yes,” I say simply, standing with my book, pinning my hat to my head with one hand against the wind. If I stay here a minute longer I’m going to wallop Ethan with one or both of those items. “And if it wasn’t what I wanted for the rest of my life,” I tell him, “I wouldn’t deserve a life that had them in it.”
CHAPTER 26THEN
February 14, two winters ago
Alex and I haven’t talked about the New Year’s Eve kiss. I’m grateful for it, because I need our safe, familiar friendship, the comfort of our now-standard wintertime-evening hangout positions, cuddled up on the sofa.
Cuddled upplatonically, of course.
Sure it’s Valentine’s Day, but we’ve agreed to ignore that. I had an early shift at The Bookshop, came home, walked Argos, and changed into comfy clothes. Alex picked up a pizza and tubs of gelato from Luna’s and brought them to my place for dinner. We gorged ourselves on pizza, and now we’re working our way through our first tub of gelato and theNew York TimesGames.
It’s only five o’clock, but it’s been dark for an hour. It feels like midnight.
We’re lounging in shorts and T-shirts, because the heat hangs in my third-floor apartment, rising from the units below, to thepoint that I have my heat turned off, a window in the living room cracked to let in a frigid sliver of winter air.
I frown up at the Wordle on his screen, only two guesses left, as Alex holds his phone above us. My head rests on his shoulder. His chin nuzzles into my temple. “What thehellis this word?” I ask.
“If I knew that,” he says testily, “We’d be doing the mini by now.”