Chương 9
Ethan and Maya had established a parenting schedule through mediation.
Not because they hated each other.
Because they did not trust affection to do the work of structure.
The process was humiliating in small ways.
They argued about holidays.
They argued about whether a ten-month-old needed overnight visits.
They argued about a clause concerning travel notification.
Maya accused Ethan of using money to create convenience.
Ethan accused Maya of using routine to control uncertainty.
Both accusations contained truth.
At one mediation session, after forty minutes debating Christmas morning, the mediator removed her glasses and said, “Your child will not remember this Christmas.”
Neither spoke.
The mediator continued.
“You two will. That seems to be the problem.”
They compromised.
Ethan got Christmas Eve.
Maya got Christmas morning.
Jenna called the arrangement “the Treaty of Versailles with mashed bananas.”
Caleb grew.
At fourteen months he developed an obsession with ceiling fans.
At sixteen months he refused to eat peas unless Ethan placed them inside pieces of pasta.
At eighteen months he called every dog “Mike.”
Nobody knew why.
At twenty months he learned to say Daddy.
Ethan cried in Maya’s kitchen.
He denied it immediately.
“You’re crying.”
“No.”
“Your eyes are wet.”
“Allergies.”
“In November?”
“Seasonal.”
“To what?”
“Your apartment.”
Maya laughed so hard Caleb began laughing too without knowing why.
For five minutes they were a family in the least complicated sense of the word.
Then Ethan’s phone rang.
Vanessa’s name appeared.
Maya saw it.
Her laughter faded.
Ethan noticed.
“We’re finalizing one account.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I’m not explaining.”
“You are.”
He silenced the call.
Maya looked at him.
“Answer her.”
“She can wait.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Make me the reason you don’t answer her.”
His face changed.
Maya folded a dish towel.
“I’ve been that reason before.”
Ethan picked up the phone.
He stepped onto the balcony and called Vanessa back.
That night, Maya lay awake after Caleb fell asleep.
She had spent nearly two years insisting she did not love Ethan.
By then she knew the sentence was both true and incomplete.
She did not love the man she had been sleeping with during the affair.
That man existed in stolen hours.
He arrived washed, controlled, attentive, already having left the messy parts of his life somewhere else.
The Ethan who changed Caleb’s sheets at three in the morning after a stomach virus was different.
So was the Ethan who forgot extra socks.
The Ethan who once drove forty minutes because Maya’s car battery died, then became irritated when she thanked him too much.
The Ethan who attended co-parenting counseling and said very little until the counselor asked what frightened him.
“Being optional,” he answered.
Maya had looked at him.
He looked down.
“I spent most of my life believing if I was useful enough, people would keep me.”
The counselor waited.
Ethan shrugged.
“My dad worked all the time. My mother left when I was eleven. It’s not complicated.”
Maya almost laughed at the phrase.
Not complicated.
Of course.
Afterward, in the parking lot, she asked, “Is that why you work eighty hours a week?”
“I don’t work eighty.”
“You absolutely do.”
“Sixty-five.”
“That is not a defense.”
He opened his truck.
Maya stopped beside her car.
“Was that why you had the affair?”
Ethan looked at her.
“No.”
She waited.
He sighed.
“Maybe partly.”
“Because I made you feel useful?”
“You made me feel wanted.”
Maya looked away.
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
They stood in the parking lot while traffic moved on the boulevard.
Eventually Ethan said, “Why did you?”
She knew what he meant.
“Because you made me feel chosen.”
He nodded.
Then she added, “Even though technically I was the person you weren’t choosing.”
Ethan gave a quiet laugh.
“That’s bad math.”
“I’ve never been good at math.”
“You managed construction budgets.”
“Excel was doing most of the work.”
They looked at each other.
Something old moved between them.
This time neither stepped closer.
That mattered.
Two weeks later, Maya went on a date.
His name was Daniel Cho.
He was thirty-four, an emergency-room pharmacist, divorced, no children, funny without trying too hard.
Jenna had arranged it.
Maya told Ethan because he was picking Caleb up that evening.
Ethan was buckling Caleb into the car seat.
“I’ll be back around eleven.”
Ethan glanced at her.
“Okay.”
“Jenna has the emergency number.”
“Okay.”
She waited.
He tightened one strap.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Then have fun.”
She hated his face for being unreadable.
“Thanks.”
The date was good.
That irritated her more.
Daniel listened.
He did not ask invasive questions about Caleb’s father.
He told her his marriage had ended because he and his ex-wife had become people who preferred different futures.
“No scandal,” he said. “Very disappointing to friends.”
Maya laughed.
They walked three blocks after dinner.
Daniel asked if he could kiss her.
She said yes.
The kiss was gentle.
She did not think of Ethan until afterward.
That was progress.
She dated Daniel for four months.
Ethan disliked him quietly.
This was also progress.
Once, Maya caught Ethan searching Daniel’s name on his phone.
“Are you investigating him?”
Ethan locked the screen.
“No.”
“You are literally looking at his LinkedIn.”
“That is public information.”
“You need help.”
“I like to know who is around my son.”
“He has a pharmacy license and a rescue cat.”
“That proves nothing.”
“What are you looking for? Secret international crimes?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the problem.”
Ethan put the phone away.
“You’re right.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“You’re right.”
“No argument?”
“No.”
“That’s suspicious.”
He smiled.
Daniel eventually ended the relationship.
Not because of Ethan.
Maya wished it had been.
That would have been easier.
Instead Daniel said, carefully, “I think part of you is still standing in a room with him.”
They were sitting at Maya’s kitchen table.
Caleb was asleep.
Maya looked at him.
“That’s not fair.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
May you like
“Okay.”
“I have a child with him. He’s going to be in my life.”
