I didn't have the heart to turn him away. She was thinking about going back to school for something, though she hadn't figured out what yet. He told her about the contracting work. He ran his own small outfit now, doing renovation and repair work, enough to keep him steady.
He told her Lily had started second grade, was doing well, that his mother came on Thursdays to help with pickup when he had a long job. They didn't talk about Sandra, not directly, but she was there in the booth with them, the way someone always is when they've been the reason two people stopped talking. Around 1:00 a.m., when the diner had gone quiet, and the pie had appeared without either of them quite remembering ordering it, Clare set her fork down and said, "She told me things about you toward the end during the divorce. things I think she said because she wanted me on her side and she needed a reason to give me. Nathan didn't say anything.
He waited. I believed her. I didn't question it. She was my best friend and I believed her.
She looked at him steadily. And I'm not sure I should have. The words dropped into the space between them and sat there. He turned his fork slowly in his fingers.
“What made you change your mind?” “Time, and watching how you are with Lily and some things she said recently that didn't add up. She paused. “And if I'm being honest, I think I knew even then that she was giving me a version. I just chose the version that was easier.
Why are you telling me this? Because you came out at midnight to drive me home when you had no reason to, and I've been carrying this for a while. She looked at him squarely. You deserved better than what you got from the divorce, from the way people treated you, and maybe from me.
Nathan was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I'm not looking for an apology, Clare. I know. I'm giving you one anyway." He drove her home at 1:40 in the morning.
The car was quiet. Not uncomfortable quiet, the other kind. The kind that's earned. When he pulled up in front of her building, she reached for the door handle.
Then she stopped. Nathan. Yeah. She didn't turn around right away.
When she did, her face was unreadable or not quite unreadable. More like she was reading it herself in real time and wasn't sure what she found. Can I ask you one more thing? Honestly, go ahead.
When you got my call tonight, first instinct, before you started thinking, what did you feel? He considered lying. It would have been easy. The easy thing was usually available.
Relieved, he said. That you were okay. She looked at him for a moment. That stretched just past comfortable.
Okay, she said softly. Then she got out of the car. He watched her walk to the door. She didn't look back.
He drove home in the dark and the whole way he was telling himself the same three things as before. That this was nothing. That it meant nothing. That she was Sandra's best friend.
And some lines were drawn for good reasons. He got home. He checked on Lily, still asleep, one arm thrown over her stuffed horse. He stood in the doorway for a second, just watching her breathe.
Then he went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water he didn't drink, and stared at the window for a long time. His phone buzzed. A text from Clare's number. Thank you for tonight.
I mean it. He stared at it. He typed, "Anytime." He deleted it. He typed, "Glad you're home safe." He sent that instead.
Three dots appeared immediately. Then her reply, "Your pie was better than mine. That felt unfair." He stood there in his kitchen at 2:00 in the morning staring at his phone. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he smiled.
Really smiled at something that had nothing to do with Lily. He put the phone down, went to bed, lay in the dark, and told himself this was nothing. He almost believed it. The text sat in his head for 3 days.
Not the words themselves. Your pie was better than mine. That felt unfair. But the fact that she'd sent it, the fact that she'd sent it immediately, like she'd been holding her phone the whole elevator ride up.
Nathan didn't text back that night. He told himself it was because it was late because there was nothing useful to say because some conversations are better left at natural endings. But the truth was simpler and less comfortable. He didn't trust what he might say if he kept going.
So he left it. And then he spent three days noticing that he'd left it. He was on a job Thursday, a kitchen renovation out in Milfield, tearing out old cabinetry with his guy Russ when his phone buzzed and his stomach did something embarrassing before he even looked at the screen. It was his mother asking if he wanted her to pick up Lily in the rain.
He said yes. He put the phone back in his pocket. He picked up his pry bar. Russ looked at him sideways.
Russ was 61, had been divorced twice, and had the particular sixth sense of a man who had made every mistake available and could now spot them forming in other people. You waiting on something? No. You checked your phone four times in the last hour.
I'm expecting a materials quote. Russ made a sound that was technically neutral, but communicated complete disbelief. He went back to work. Nathan went back to work.
Neither of them said anything else. But that night after Lily was in bed and the house was quiet, Nathan picked up his phone and typed, "How's the cat?" He stared at it. He sent it. The three dots appeared faster than they had any right to.