Not I didn't contact you. I just looked you up. It wasn't hard. Your shop has a website. There was a photo of you on it from some Chamber of Commerce thing.
She paused. You looked good. You looked like you'd built something real. And I saw Ava. There was a photo from a school event.
I think your mother posted it somewhere public and she looked so much like you and she looked happy. And I thought she stopped. What did you think? James said. I thought you were better without me.
She said it plainly without self-pity. I thought I had done the right thing, that the disruption of leaving had resolved itself into something better than what would have been. That you were okay. That you had what you needed. And that was enough for you?
He asked. No, she said it was never enough. But I convinced myself that what I needed didn't matter as much as what you had. She looked up. And then everything fell apart in Atlanta.
And I was sitting in my car outside a Walgreens parking lot with $23 and a baby and no plan. And I did the thing I had been not doing for six years. What thing? I let myself want something. She held his gaze.
I let myself want to come back. Not because I needed to be saved. Because I wanted to be somewhere real, somewhere that had never been performance, never been maintenance, never been me trying to be the version of myself that was acceptable to someone. She exhaled. I wanted to be somewhere that knew what I actually was.
And for better or worse, James, the only place that has ever been is with you. The kitchen was very quiet. Noah made a small sound and James shifted him automatically, patted his back without looking, kept his eyes on Sophia. That's the rest, he asked. She hesitated.
He saw it. Sophia, there's one more thing. He waited. David, she said, Noah's father, he found out where I am. The temperature in the kitchen changed.
James moved Noah to his other shoulder. What do you mean he found out? I mean, he's been calling. He started calling about 3 weeks ago before I came here. He must have gotten my number from someone.