And Marcus felt something drop in his stomach, cold and fast, like the floor had just tilted underneath all of them. Because Chicago was not the old part of town. Chicago was not a 20-minute drive on a road he never used to take. Chicago was a thousand miles away, and it was Emily's whole life's work handed to her on a phone call. And there was no version of the next sentence that didn't hurt somebody.
"That'sโ" Marcus made himself say it. Made himself be the kind of man who said it. "Emily. Emily, that's incredible. That'sโyou should be proud. That's huge."
But Emily wasn't looking at him like it was huge. She was looking at her father, who had gone very quiet. And then at Ava, who had paint on her nose and was watching all of them with a child's radar for grown-ups saying one thing and meaning another. And then she was looking at Marcus, and there was something breaking behind her eyes. Some old wound Marcus couldn't see the shape of yet.
"Yeah," Emily said faintly. "Huge." She set down her paintbrush and walked into the house. Marcus started to follow. Harold caught his arm.
"Let her go," the old man said quietly. "There's something you don't know about my daughter's son. Something that's going to come up now, whether any of us are ready for it or not." Marcus looked at him. "What?"
Harold watched the door his daughter had disappeared through. And for the first time since Marcus had known him, the old man looked genuinely afraid. "The last man who loved her," Harold said, "asked her to give this exact thing up, this exact dream. Told her he'd support her. Told her he loved her."
"And then when the moment came and she had a chance like this one, he asked her to stay, to be less so he could be more." Harold's jaw tightened. "She said no. Broke her heart to do it, but she said no. And she promised herself she'd never let another man put her in that position again."
"Never let herself get so attached to somebody that they could ask her to shrink her whole life down to fit inside theirs." Marcus felt the ground shift again. "That's why she pushes so hard," Harold said. "That's why she doesn't let anybody in. She's not cold, Marcus."
"She's the warmest person I know. She's just been burned by the exact thing you two have been building out here all fall. And now the exact thing that burned her is sitting on the other side of that door, waiting for one of you to say something." He looked at Marcus, and his eyes were wet. "So think real hard about what you say next, son."
"Because whatever is growing between you two, it's about to get tested, and most things don't survive this test." From inside the house, Marcus could hear Emily on the phone again, her voice low and tight. And beside him, in a small voice, Ava tugged his sleeve. "Dad," she whispered. "Is Miss Emily going to leave?"