Chapter 24: Ask Me Now

In April, ten months after the wedding, I walked down my own front steps without touching the rail.

Mom stood in the doorway with her phone raised.

"Is that on?" I asked.

"It's always on," she said. "Go."

Elliot was waiting on the curb across the street.

He had a baby carrier strapped to his chest and a gray jacket with a clinic badge pinned to it.

His license had come back in January.

He had worked the free clinic on Eighth Street every Saturday since, for the hours the court gave him, and then for no reason at all.

I crossed the street slowly and on purpose.

My hip clicked, and held.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

"It's Saturday," I said. "I always come on Saturday."

He had asked me to dinner every Saturday since last autumn.

I had said yes to some, and no to some, and once I said nothing and sat on the porch and he sat on the curb until it got dark.

Not one time did he complain about the answer.

That was how I knew.

"The clinic offered me full time," he said now. "Weekdays, and a pay cut."

"Take it."

"You don't want to talk about it?"

"You've already decided you want it," I said. "I'd rather watch you do it."

The baby stirred against his chest.

She was six months old, with her father's dark hair and an enormous opinion about everything.

Courtney had pleaded guilty in November.

The court gave Elliot custody, and Courtney's mother kept the baby on weekdays while he worked.

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