“I know it has been hard,” I said, wanting to believe he was just exhausted from the hospital visits. “We are going to get through this.”
He did not answer, his eyes already drifting back toward the pocket where his phone was hidden.
At six o’clock, the rain started again, tapping a steady, uneven rhythm against the metal window frame in the living room.
A bowl of cold macaroni and cheese sat untouched on the low coffee table.
David sat on the far end of the sofa, his legs crossed, his face illuminated by the blue glow of his screen.
Sophie stood near his knees, holding a worn picture book about a red tractor. She did not press the book into his lap; she just held it out at arm’s length, waiting.
“Read it, Daddy?” she whispered.
David did not look up from the screen, his thumb continuing its steady flicking motion.
“I am far too tired tonight, Sophie,” he said. “Ask your mother to do it.”
Sophie looked at me on the other chair, then looked back at David’s profile. She slowly pulled the book back to her chest and took three quiet steps backward into the dark hallway.
I wanted to reach for her, but the simple act of leaning forward sent another wave of heat through my ribs.
“She has been waiting all afternoon for you to read to her, David,” I said.
“We are all waiting for things, Claire,” he said, his voice flat and distant.
“It would take five minutes,” I said.
He finally locked his phone and stood up, not looking at either of us as he walked toward the stairs.
“I need to clear my head,” he said.
By nine o’clock, the baby monitor on the nightstand was humming with low static.
Sophie was asleep in her small room down the hall, her plastic doll tucked under her arm.
I lay in the dark of the master bedroom, the pain in my hip throbbing in time with the hum of the monitor.
