Chapter 19: Come Inside

"I came inside," Hamish said. "You told me to."

"I told you to because I was in labor."

"You said it very clearly. You also said I couldn't leave."

"I was in pain."

"You were persuasive," he said.

I stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind me, so the cats wouldn't hear.

The air smelled of woodsmoke and wet leaves.

I was wearing Tamara's cardigan over my nursing top, and I had not brushed my hair, and I did not care at all.

"You've got two minutes," I said. "Say what you came to say."

"I came to say I'm sorry again. I know it doesn't help."

"And?"

"And something else I've been practicing in the truck."

"Go ahead."

He took his hands out of his pockets and held them open at his sides, the way he had on the first night.

"Everybody in your life has told you the same thing," he said. "Go back for the baby. Keep the family together."

He drew a breath.

"Your mother-in-law said it in the corridor, very calmly. Give it a month and you'll want your husband and your house."

"And?"

"I think that's part of why I never said anything in the summer. I thought you'd stay with him.

"I thought if I told you, I'd be the man who blew up your marriage. You'd hate me, and then you'd stay with him anyway."

I stared at him.

"That's the stupidest reason I have ever heard."

"I know."

"You thought I'd go back to him."

"You told him yes," he said quietly. "In the hospital. You said you'd walk with him."

"I said it so he'd be there on that stage."

"I know that now. I didn't know it then."

"Hamish."

"What?"

"I told four hundred strangers into a microphone that I was divorcing him."