Chapter 18: What He Won't Do

Seth's POV

Paola read the first page of Franco's email standing in my kitchen, with her coat still on.

I had a pot of soup on the stove and nothing else planned.

She had texted me from the lobby of her building.

"Can I come to yours? I don't want to read this alone."

Her second text said: "And I don't want to read it with an audience."

I had written back: "Yes. Come now."

Then I had cleaned the whole apartment in twenty minutes.

"He's numbered his reasons," she said. "There are nineteen."

"What's the first one?"

"Proximity to family correlates with improved emotional stability." She looked up. "He's cited a study."

"Which study?"

"He doesn't say. It's in a footnote that just says 'see attached.' There's no attachment."

I turned the soup down very carefully.

Every part of me wanted to take the phone out of her hand.

I wanted to write him four lines that would end the seven pages and the man who wrote them.

I could have done it in a minute.

I could have made all seven pages go away by Monday.

That was exactly the problem.

It was the same thing I had done in August, with a bigger excuse.

"Do you want me to do anything?" I asked. "I mean anything at all. I have a lot of ideas."

"I bet you do."

"Most of them are bad."

She smiled a little, without looking up from the screen.

"No," she said. "I want you to be here while I read it. That's all."

"Then I'm here."

She took off her coat at last, and I hung it on the hook by my door.

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