Page 62 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

Not that anyone asks directly anymore.

That, in its own way, is worse.

By the time I leave the office, the city has shifted toward evening.

The tower lobby is warmer after sunset, the suspended installation catching the artificial light in fractured gold instead of silver. The car is already waiting. I give the driver my address, then lean back and close my eyes for exactly twelve seconds before my phone vibrates again.

Sara.

Naturally.

I answer. “What now?”

“One more thing,” she says. “The board chair wants to know whether you intend to invite a guest this year.”

I go still.

There's a beat of silence long enough to acquire meaning.

Then: “No.”

“Understood,” she replies, and for once, there’s no steel in her voice. “I’ll remove the secondary placement from the table plan.”

“Do that.”

She ends the call.

I slide the phone back into my pocket and look out the window instead.

Traffic crawls along the avenue. Headlights streak across wet pavement. Somewhere beyond the buildings, the lake's a dark mass under a darkening sky. Chicago in the evening is all momentum and reflection.

I used to come home late and still expect light in the kitchen.

Conversation.

Megan standing barefoot on the wood floor with some absurdly optimistic dinner half-finished because she’d started telling me about her day and forgotten the stove.

Now I come home to routine.

Which isn't the same thing as emptiness, though at times it has been close enough to pass for it.

Tonight, for reasons I don't care to inspect too closely, I’m aware of something else under the surface of that thought.

Addy is there.

Oliver will be there.

Captain, inevitably, will be wherever the most attention is.

The apartment won’t be still.

That should be irrelevant.

It isn’t.

I know I’m home before I step fully into the apartment because Oliver is laughing.

It’s not a small sound. Not the contained, thoughtful amusement he often gives when something surprises him. It’s open, bright, unchecked.