I know it's not. She looked at him, held the look. You've been through it, she said. Not a question. He thought of Mia's mother.
He thought of the year after the divorce. When Maya would ask why mama wasn't home and he didn't have the answer that was honest and also 11year-old could carry he thought of how many times he dialed a number and then ended the call before it connected something like it he said she nodded turned back to the window then you know she said you know that sometimes the hardest place to be is home they pulled on to Birwood Drive at 1:47 in the morning Robert's house was the third on the left a pale yellow colonial with white trim. The driveway freshly salted even though there hadn't been ice in weeks. The porch light was on. The curtains in the front room were drawn, but there was a faint glow behind them, the kind that meant someone was awake and had been for a while.
Calvin pulled the truck to the curb. He cut the engine. Neither of them moved. "He's awake," Sophie said quietly. "Yeah, he's been awake all night, probably."
She looked at the house. Her hand was on the door handle, but she didn't open it. Calvin watched her. He didn't rush her. He'd been around enough to know that pushing someone towards something they weren't ready for was just a different kind of cruelty.
She sat there for maybe a full 2 minutes. Then she said, "What if it's too late? What if there's too much builtup between us and we go in there and say two nice things and then fall right back into everything that already didn't work?" Calvin thought about it. Not the polished version of the answer, the real one.
Then you try again tomorrow, he said. And the day after that, but if you don't go in tonight, you'll spend every minute of the drive back to the airport wondering what would have happened if you had. She looked at him. Something in her face shifted. You know, she said, "For a man who drove 30 minutes in the middle of the night for a stranger, you're giving an awful lot of advice."
He almost laughed. You asked. I did a beat. I really did. She looked back at the house.
The porch light, the curtain with its thin gold glow. Going home doesn't mean pretending it never happened, Calvin said. It means giving both of you a chance to finally say the true thing. Sophie was still. Then she opened the door.
She stepped out onto the cold sidewalk. She pulled her duffel bag from the back seat. She took her rolling suitcase from Calvin when he came around. She stood on the sidewalk and looked at the front door. Thank you.
She said. Not turned around, just set it forward to the door, to the light. Don't thank me, Calvin said. I drove 30 minutes. She finally turned and looked at him, and for just a moment, something real moved across her face.
Something old and exhausted and hopeful all at once. The way someone looks when they've been carrying something for so long, they've forgotten how it feels not to carry it. 30 minutes can change everything, she said. Then she turned and walked up the path. He watched the front door.
It opened before she reached it. Before she even knocked, Robert Hayes stood in the doorway. He was wearing a flannel robe and his reading glasses pushed up on his head and his arms open before she'd taken three steps onto the porch. She walked into them. They stood there in the porch light without moving.