Then, how do you feel? He thought about it. Typed honestly, like I put something down. Her response came back in seconds. Good.
That's exactly right. He looked at that last text for a long time. Then he set his phone down and went to check on Lily, who was supposed to be asleep and was not asleep because she had a flashlight under her covers and a book she'd promised to put away an hour ago. Lily. She looked up with the expression of someone caught in the act who is nonetheless going to defend their position.
I was at the good part. It's 9:15. The good part doesn't care what time it is. He stood in her doorway and looked at her. 7 years old and fearless and completely her own person.
And he thought about Daniel, saying, "You're a lucky man." And felt the complete unambiguous truth of it. "Five more minutes," he said. She looked at him with surprise. He usually held the line.
"Really?" "Five then, light out." "Dad," she said, and she said it with gravity, like she was making note of this moment. For the record, you're being nice. I'm always nice.
You're being extra nice. He leaned against the door frame. Maybe, he said. She studied him with that forensic seven-year-old attention. Is it because of Clare?
He looked at her for a long moment. "Maybe," he said again. She nodded slowly like this confirmed something she'd already suspected. "Good," she said, and went back to her book. He stood there for another moment, looking at her in her sloth pajamas with her flashlight and her five remaining minutes, and felt the fullness of the moment so completely it almost hurt.
Then he turned off the hall light and went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of a water and thought about the fact that he had a date on Saturday, not a formal one. Nothing announced as such, but he texted Clare earlier in the week and said Lily's at Mrs. Delgato Saturday evening and she'd texted back, "I know a good restaurant on Broadway. Make a reservation." And he had and it was on his calendar and every time he saw it on the calendar, he felt something that was both terrifying and genuinely quietly good.
Saturday came with the particular quality of a day that knows it matters. He changed his shirt twice. This was not something he acknowledged to himself while it was happening. But afterward standing in front of aunt of his bathroom mirror in the second shirt, the dark blue one that Greg had said once made him look like someone who had their life together, he acknowledged it. He'd changed his shirt twice.
He was 45 minutes away from a restaurant reservation and he'd changed his shirt twice. He was fine with this. He texted Clare, "I'm leaving in 10 minutes. Do you need me to pick you up?" Claire, I'm already there. him.