I want to argue. Want to tell him he doesn’t understand. That some of us are built differently. That not everyone needs the house and the baby and the—love of his life.
His phone buzzes, and his face softens.
“Amelia?” I guess.
“Rosie’s bedtime.” He shows me the screen, it’s a FaceTime request. “You mind?”
Yes.
A lot, actually.
“Go ahead.”
He answers. The screen fills with a baby—droopy eyes, clutching a stuffed elephant, with Amelia’s voice in the background saying, “Show Daddy your new trick.”
The baby blows a raspberry.
Nate acts like she just solved world hunger. “That’s my girl! Can you do it again?”
She does. With more spit.
“Genius,” he declares. Then to me, “Want to say hi?”
“I’m good.”
But the phone’s already turned. The baby stares at me through the screen, huge eyes and a suspicious expression, as if she knows I’m full of shit.
“That’s Uncle Dean,” Nate tells her. “He’s pretending he doesn’t want one of you.”
“I’m not—”
The baby raspberries at me.
“See? Even she knows.”
I flip him off below the camera line.
Five minutes later, after a bedtime song, promises to be home soon, and more kisses than seem necessary, he hangs up.
“Sorry,” he says, the dopey grin on his face suggesting he’s not really sorry at all.
“It’s fine.”
“You know what your problem is?”
I curl my fingers around my glass. “Please, enlighten me.”
“You think wanting something normal makes you weak.”
I finish my bourbon. “I don’t think that.”
“No? Then why are you sitting here looking like death while some wedding planner in Italy is probably wondering why you let her go?”
“I didn’t let her—she was always going. It was temporary.”
“Everything’s temporary if you decide it is.”
“That’s not—”
