The street was quieter now. The cold air did what cold air does, cut through everything, made everything simpler. "I'm parked down there," Clare said, nodding left. "I'm right here," Ethan said, nodding right. They stood on the sidewalk. equidistant from their separate cars, which was almost funny.
Lily's first te-ball game, Ethan said. Next Saturday, 9 in the morning. He paused. You're welcome to come if you want. No pressure.
It she'd probably like it, but it's also cold and there's a lot of standing around and the snack situation is. I'll be there, Claire said. You don't have to, Ethan. Ethan, I'll be there. He stopped.
Okay. He said, "Okay." She started to turn. He said her name. She looked back.
The seat he said earlier when you stayed. He paused. I need you to know that I saw it. That I understood what it meant. He held her gaze.
I was just terrified. I know, she said. I know you were. I'm still terrified. I know that, too.
She looked at him steadily, the street light catching the line of her face. I'm a little terrified, too. in case that helps. It did help more than she probably knew. She turned and walked to her car. He watched until her tail lights disappeared around the corner.
Then he stood there for another full minute on a cold Denver sidewalk, hands in his pockets, looking at nothing in particular, while something that had been frozen for a very long time moved slowly, painfully, finally through his chest like water through cracked ground in the first week of spring. He drove home. He sat in the driveway for a few minutes without getting out. Inside, the lights were off. Mrs.
Delgato had left a lamp on in the living room. the way she always did. So, the house wasn't fully dark, and he could see through the front window the faint light falling across the carpet where Lily had left her shoes in the middle of the floor again. He thought about Clare, saying, "I'm not asking you to put her away. I just want to sit next to her." He thought about Sarah, not with the raw tearing grief of the first years, with something quieter, something that had worn itself smooth over time, like sea glass, something that achd but didn't bleed.
She would have liked Clare. He knew this with a certainty that he hadn't expected, and that hit him so directly. He had to close his eyes for a moment. She would have found her funny. She would have approved of the directness.