Chapter 11
Emma came home twenty-three days later.
Roman had converted an entire room into a nursery.
It looked like something from a magazine.
Cream walls.
Handmade crib.
Rocking chair beside enormous windows.
Closet full of clothes Emma would not fit for months.
I walked inside.
Then stopped.
On the dresser was Owen’s photograph.
The one from the frame Ethan had broken.
The glass had been replaced.
So had the frame.
But not the picture.
Owen still wore his crooked paper crown.
I touched the edge.
Roman stood behind me.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“It belongs here.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I picked up Emma.
She slept against my chest.
“She should know she had a brother.”
Roman nodded.
“Then she will.”
I turned toward him.
“What happens now?”
“With what?”
“Us.”
For perhaps the first time since I met him, Roman Moretti looked nervous.
“I don’t know.”
“You always know.”
“Not with you.”
I smiled.
“That must be terrifying.”
“It’s inconvenient.”
I laughed.
He stepped closer.
“Claire, I know what people say about me.”
“Some of it is probably true.”
“More than some.”
“I figured.”
“There are things in my life I’m changing. Things I should have changed before you.”
“I’m not asking you to become a different man for me.”
“No.”
His gaze dropped toward Emma.
“I’m becoming a different man because I finally understand what staying the same costs.”
That answer frightened me because I believed it.
“I can’t marry you.”
His face fell slightly.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were going to.”
“I had a speech.”
“Was it terrible?”
“Harry cried.”
“Harry cries at dog food commercials.”
“Still counts.”
I touched his cheek.
“I love you.”
Roman went completely still.
It was the first time I had said it.
“But I can’t go from one husband into another because I’m scared to stand alone.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, there was disappointment there.
And respect.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I can wait.”
“What if it takes years?”
“I own several comfortable chairs.”
I laughed so hard I nearly woke Emma.
Then Roman kissed me.
Slowly.
No audience.
No dramatic promise.
No diamond.
No contract.
Just a kiss in a nursery where my living daughter slept beneath the photograph of my dead son.
I moved into my own house four months later.
Roman hated it.
He tried very hard not to show that he hated it.
The house was a yellow craftsman three streets from a public park.
Small kitchen.
Old floors.
A porch that tilted slightly left.
Roman walked through it with the expression of a man inspecting a crime scene.
“The windows are vulnerable.”
“They’re windows.”
“The fence is decorative.”
“Most fences are.”
“The basement smells damp.”
“That is what basements do.”
“The street has only one camera.”
“Normal people call that a doorbell.”
He stared at me.
“I can improve it.”
May you like
“You can buy me a housewarming plant.”
The next morning, twenty-three plants arrived.
