He Missed Our Daughter's Birthday Again novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Not an Excuse

I lay in the dim recovery room and let it settle.

Sammy wasn't his.

The boy with the paper whistle and the seven-legged horse had never been his.

"Then why did you go?" I asked.

"Leah..."

"I mean it. Not why you went then, when you thought he might be. Why did you leave Junie's cake, and the carousel, and a phone that rang for me in a hospital bed?"

He opened his mouth.

"Don't tell me you didn't know," I said. "You knew it wasn't proven. You said so yourself on my sister's porch."

"I thought if there was any chance..."

"There's always a chance. That's what you do with it that matters."

He nodded slowly, and he didn't argue.

"I wanted to be a man who showed up," he said. "And I picked the person who was asking the loudest."

"Say that again."

"I answered whoever was asking the loudest. Celia asked loud. You never asked at all."

"I asked."

"You said you were fine. For seven years you said you were fine." His voice broke. "I believed you. I'm not saying that to hand you the blame. I'm saying I took the easy answer, because it let me go."

I looked at the ceiling.

I didn't forgive him.

I'd have liked to, because I was tired and sore and he was crying openly in front of me.

But Junie's face on the carousel was still in my head.

"He isn't yours," I said. "That doesn't undo it."

"I know."

"It doesn't un-miss a cake. It doesn't un-ring a phone."

"I know. I'm not asking it to."

"Then what are you asking?"

"A chance to show you, one day at a time." He swallowed. "You can say no whenever you like. I'll still be there."

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