"But you make that call as a woman who knows she's allowed to need people, Emily. Not as a woman still trying to prove to a man named Daniel that she never did. He doesn't get a vote anymore. You hear me? That man does not get a vote in the rest of your life."
Emily pressed her father's hand to her cheek and cried. And this time, it wasn't the scared kind of crying. It was the kind that let something out that's been locked up too long. Marcus sat very still, giving them the moment, his own throat tight because Harold's words had cut just as deep into him. A man who'd been holding weight for a long time and never asked anybody to help carry it.
That was him. That was exactly him. He'd been so focused on Emily's wall that he'd nearly missed the fact that Harold had just described his own brick for brick. After a while, Emily wiped her face and sat up straight and looked at Marcus. "I need to tell you something," she said.
"And I need you to not do the noble thing this time. I need you to just be a person about it." "Okay." "Okay," Marcus said. "When I got that call," Emily said, "when they offered me the job, for about 10 seconds I was thrilled."
"It was everything. And then the very next thing I felt before I even hung up the phone wasโ" She stopped, made herself say it. "Was your face, Ava's face, my dad out here in this garden. This whole thing we've built out here since October." "And I felt sick because I realized the job wasn't the only thing I wanted anymore."
Her voice shook. "And that terrified me more than Daniel ever did. Because I taught myself so well not to need anybody that the second I did, my first instinct was to run to Chicago and never look back." "Not because I wanted the job more. Because wanting you scared me more."
Marcus reached across the table and took her other hand. "You're not running," he said. "No," Emily said. "I'm not running." She looked at their joined hands.
"But I'm not turning down Chicago tomorrow either, because that's just fear in the other direction. Throwing away my whole career the second a man shows up so I can prove I've changed. That's not it either." She took a breath. "I'm going to ask them for time."
"A real answer takes a real minute. And I'm going to spend that time figuring out if what's happening in this kitchen is the real thing or just two lonely people clinging to each other in a dead woman's garden. And I need you to be okay with the fact that I don't know yet. Can you do that?" And Marcus, who wanted so badly to say yes, it's real, I know it's real, don't go, understood with sudden clarity that this was the test.
This was the exact moment Harold had warned him about. This was where he found out whether he was a man who loved Emily or a man who loved having her. "I can do that," Marcus said. And he meant it. Emily let out a breath like she'd been holding it for four years.