Page 136 of Say My Name

“You’ll have your own space with the baby.”

“I see that.”

“This is only a draft. We can change the schedule if there are things you don’t agree with.”

She thinks the schedule is the problem.

I close the laptop gently, my own movements a contrast to the sudden, sharp clarity in my head. I turn in my chair until I’m facing her.

“Elena, where does us exist in your model?”

Her expression goes still.

The crease between her brows disappears. Her shoulders straighten, and the warmth she’s carried all evening retreats behind the composed face I see across conference tables.

“The original agreement accounts for us,” she says.

“It accounts for two parents.”

“That’s what we are.”

I wait for her to add something else.

She doesn’t.

The silence presses into every ordinary detail around us. Two water glasses sit beside the laptop. Her sweater is draped over the back of the chair she expects me to occupy. I put our dinner plates in the dishwasher while she teased me about my technique.

An hour ago, this apartment felt more like home than the place where I sleep.

Now she’s describing me as a man who will arrive according to a custody schedule.

“The terms were designed to protect both of us,” she says. “Separate residences were always part of the plan.”

“Before you changed the plan.”

“I didn’t change it.”

“You lied about the window and let me believe it. Then the negative result forced the truth out. You canceled the clinic, and you kept asking for me anyway.”

Color rises along her throat. “That was different.”

“You admitted you lied because you wanted me. Then you spent months calling that desire useful every time I asked what it meant.”

“We agreed we could be honest about wanting sex outside the fertility window.”

“And you think that’s all this has been?”

“I think we need to be careful about assigning meaning to choices we made while trying to conceive a child.”

My hands clench under the table. The urge to stand, to walk away, is a physical force. The restraint it takes to remain seated surprises even me.

“Was the office about conception?”

Her lips part, but no answer comes.

“What about the bar? Tuesday last month?” I ask. “You texted me because you wanted me here. We ordered dinner. We sat on your couch and talked for hours. You told me about your ex and why trusting someone terrifies you.”

“Dominic.”