She was going to look at this woman and this baby with those wide brown eyes and evaluate everything the way she evaluated everything. Quietly and thoroughly and without letting you know she was doing it until she'd already arrived at her conclusion. He thought about the jerk chicken still in the microwave. He thought about all of it and eventually somewhere around 3:30 in the morning, he fell asleep. He was up at 5:15 out of pure habit.
He made coffee. He stood at the kitchen window while it brewed and watched the sky go from black to gray in the slow, reluctant way it does in November. The rain had stopped somewhere in the night. The street was wet and quiet. He heard the guest room door open at 6.
Sophia came down the hallway carrying Noah on her hip, moving carefully like she was still trying to take up as little space in his house as possible. She was wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, and she looked like a woman who had gotten exactly as much sleep as someone gets with an 8-month-old and a guilty conscience. She stopped when she saw him at the kitchen window. Morning, she said. Coffee's made, he said.
She got herself a mug, sat at the kitchen table. Noah looked at James with the unguarded curiosity of a baby who does not yet know that strangers can be dangerous. His big dark eyes moving over James' face. The way Ava used to look at new things when she was that age, absorbing everything, storing it away. James looked at the baby.
The baby was about 8 months old, round-faced with a dimple on his left cheek and eyelashes that were frankly outrageous for a person his size. He was wearing a blue onesie that said future genius on it in yellow letters. James reached over and offered the baby his finger. The way you do without thinking about it. Noah grabbed it immediately, held on with a grip that was surprisingly strong for someone who weighed maybe 18 pounds.
James felt something in his chest that he didn't have a name for. He looked up and found Sophia watching him. She looked away quickly, took a sip of her coffee. "How'd you sleep?" He asked.
"Better than I have in weeks," she said like she hadn't meant to admit that. He nodded. "James," she said. "Sophia, I want to say something and I need you to just let me say it before you respond." "Can you do that?"
He pulled out a chair across from her and sat down. ""Say it."" She looked at her coffee mug, then at Noah, then at him. I don't deserve your help. I know that. I am not going to pretend that what I did six years ago was okay, or that showing up like this after all this time is something I had any right to do. I know how this looks.
I know what you're probably thinking. What am I probably thinking? That I only came back because I need something. She didn't flinch. Yes.
And also, no. It's more complicated than that. But I'm not going to try to explain the complicated part right now because you don't have any reason to believe me yet. And I know that. She met his eyes.