James felt something break open in his chest that he did not have a name for and did not try to name. He offered the baby his finger. Noah grabbed it and pulled it toward his mouth with the decisive confidence of someone who had made his evaluation and was now done with formalities. James laughed, actually laughed. It surprised him.
Sophia watched all of this with an expression that was too complicated to read in a single glance. He likes you, she said. He wants to eat my finger. He likes you, she repeated quietly. James stood up, put his hands in his pockets, got himself back under control.
You eat anything else today? I had the rest of the eggs. Good. He turned toward the kitchen. I'll figure out something for lunch.
He made sandwiches. Turkey, which was what he had. He put chips on the side because there were chips and because it required no further thought. He brought the plates out and they sat at the kitchen table again. Noah on the floor between them in a bouncy seat Sophia had set up which James had carried in from the car last night and which he now looked at and realized was actually pretty worn.
One of the buckle clips showing stress fractures in the plastic. He made a note of that, not out loud, just in his head, in the running list he kept of things that needed to be addressed. "Tell me about Atlanta," he said. Sophia looked up from her sandwich. "What do you want to know?"
"Whatever you're willing to say." She was quiet for a moment, organizing something inside herself. I went there about a year after I left here. I was staying with a cousin in Greensboro first, just trying to get my head right. Then I got a job offer in Atlanta.
Good money, office management for a logistics company. I took it, I thought. She paused. I thought if I got far enough away and built something solid enough, I would stop feeling like I'd made a mistake. James looked at her.
Did it work? For a while, she picked at the edge of her sandwich. The job was good. I was good at it. I made friends.
I had a life. It wasn't the life I She stopped, redirected. It was a real life. And then I met someone. The kitchen was quiet.
Noah's father, James, said it wasn't a question. His name was David. He was He seemed like a good man. He was attentive and stable, and I thought, "Okay, okay. This is the thing that everything I gave up worth it."