Chapter 20: Not Careful

Ollie's fever broke at dawn on Saturday, and by Sunday he was asking for pancakes.

Sylvia made them, badly, in a hotel kitchenette, and I watched her do it from the doorway with something I didn't have a word for.

Clark did the dishes.

Nobody said a thing about it.

I went home that evening with the ring in my coat pocket, next to the ultrasound frame.

Rafe came up the stairs behind me at nine.

He carried a bag of shopping and a loaf of bread, and he put them on my counter without a word.

"You're cooking," I said.

"I'm not. I'm assembling." He turned the kettle on. "There's a difference."

I watched him move around my small kitchen.

He found the one good knife on the first try.

"You're not asking me how it went," I said.

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Because you held a sick child for four hours and said the truest thing you could to him. If you want to tell me about it, you will."

I leaned on the counter.

My throat had gone tight.

"He gave me the ring."

"I saw."

"I held a child, Rafe. For the first time since. I thought it would be unbearable."

"And?"

"It wasn't. It was only sad." I laughed, and it broke in the middle. "That's worse, somehow."

He put down the knife.

He came around the counter and stood in front of me, close, but not touching.

"May I?"

I nodded.

He wrapped both arms around me, and I put my face into his chest and cried.

It wasn't the way I had cried in the stairwell on the night I arrived, with one hand clamped over my mouth.

It came loudly, and it went on for a long time.

He didn't tell me it was fine.

He held on and let me use his shirt.

When it ended, I lifted my head and my cheeks were wet, and so was his collar.

"I'm sorry about your shirt."

"It's the best thing that's happened to it." He thumbed the tears from my face. "What do you need?"

I thought about the honest answer.

"I need you to stop being careful," I said.

His hands stilled on my jaw.

"I'm not made of glass. I'm not a patient. I've been looked at gently by a lot of doctors, and I want to be looked at by you the other way."

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