Before You

“That won’t happen.”

“How do you know?”

I leaned in further, as close as I could get to the table without moving my chair. “Because you’ll be with me.”

I watched that hit her, and then I saw her try to shove it away.

Jesus Christ.

Even if it was the truth, I needed to be more careful with my responses.

“My job requires me to fly every week,” she said. “I can’t put you in my pocket and take you out every time I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.”

There was no sarcasm in her tone. This was what real fear looked like.

“I want to tell you something …” I glanced past her to the counter where Sue was standing and then back at the girl whose haunted eyes were so much like mine. “The woman who delivered your coffee had lost her son two years ago to leukemia. He was four.” There was a shift in her expression, and that was what I had been after. “The woman who works in the kitchen is Sue’s sister. About a year ago, her husband beat her to an inch of her life. She stays in the back because she needs several more surgeries on her face, and she doesn’t want anyone to see it.”

“My God.”

“The reason I’m telling you this is because they survived when they’d thought they wouldn’t. I know it’s something you question every single day, whether you’re going to get through this, and I promise you, you will. You’re going to survive this, Billie.”

She turned her cup in a circle like it was a glass of wine. “Why do you want to help me, Jared?”

I held her eyes while I said, “Because I can,” and then I pushed back my chair, knowing if I checked my watch, it would tell me it was time to go. “I’m sorry, but I have a flight to catch.”

I watched her tense at the mention of it.

I took a final drink of the coffee, set it on the table, and stood. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“You will?”

I moved next to her chair, and my hand went to her shoulder, the faint bruises somewhere under there. “How else will I be able to get you on a plane?” I waited for a smile. There wasn’t one. “Stay, finish your drink. I’ll have Sue send over a pumpkin muffin; she makes the best.”

“I just ate,” she whispered, “but thank you.”

I left the coffee shop, knowing that was the first time Billie had lied to me.

THIRTY-FIVE

HONEY

SUMMER 1985

ON THEIR THREE-MONTH ANNIVERSARY, Andrew took Honey out to dinner.

It wasn’t an occasion they had planned to celebrate. Honey hadn’t even been sure he would be back from the hospital before the restaurants closed. But when he’d walked through their front door around eight that night and pulled his wife into his arms, they’d both suggested going to supper at the same time.

They’d picked an Italian restaurant that was a block from their condo, and just as they finished dessert, Andrew reached across the table and placed his hand on hers.

“I want to talk to you about something.”

Honey had sensed this was coming. It was a feeling she had gotten the moment he hugged her after work. She wondered if he had been able to feel the same thing from her since there was something she also wanted to discuss with him.

“You can tell me anything,” she said, swiping her thumb over his wrist. “You know that.”

He didn’t come right out with it. Instead, he stared at her for several seconds, making her face warm and her body tingle. And as the anticipation was building within her, he dropped, “Honey, I’m ready to be a father.”

The warmth from her cheeks trickled down her neck and went into her belly, a spot she’d been watching since they got married. Not because there was a baby in it, but because she wished there were.

“Andrew,” she whispered, feeling the tickling move to the back of her mouth, “I want nothing more than to be a mother.” The emotion in her throat stopped her from speaking any louder.

Coming off her birth control was the conversation she’d wanted to have with her husband, so she was in shock that he had brought it up. At the same time, hearing they were both ready and wanting to be parents made her so pleased.