“Whatever he asks.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
“What if he wants to leave?”
“I’ll help him.”
Her mouth parted.
“What if he doesn’t want to live with you?”
“I’ll find somewhere safe.”
“What if he falls in love with someone else?”
The question struck so precisely that I could not breathe for a moment.
Leah covered her face. “God, I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It could happen.”
“I don’t believe it will.”
“But if it does, I don’t get to hold him to a promise he can’t remember making.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
I looked at the table because watching her cry made mine harder to contain.
“I love him,” I said. “That means his life belongs to him, even if the life he chooses no longer has me in it.”
Leah wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
“That is the most awful thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“It feels worse from this side.”
She laughed through her tears.
We ate enough to satisfy each other.
Afterward, Leah led me to a pharmacy across the street where a photo-printing kiosk stood beside the greeting cards.
“You said he studies pictures,” she said.
“He does.”
“Then let’s give him more than a phone screen.”
We selected photographs carefully.
Family first.
