Chapter 10: What Gets Said Over Eggs
The diner was small and warm and smelled like coffee and butter, and Liam approved of it immediately.
He climbed into the booth, put Bun on the table facing outward so Bun could see the room, and picked up the laminated menu with both hands.
"I can't read all of this," he announced.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Eggs.
And the round potatoes."
"Hash browns."
"Those."
The waitress came.
Damon ordered black coffee.
I ordered tea.
Liam ordered eggs, hash browns, and orange juice, and then asked the waitress if the orange juice had pulp because he didn't like pulp, and she said no, and he said good, and she looked at him with the expression that Liam reliably produced in adults, which was something between delight and disbelief.
When she left, Damon wrapped both hands around his coffee cup and looked at the table.
"I need to tell you something," he said.
"About that night."
I waited.
"I had found something.
A week before." He didn't look up.
"A message on your phone.
From a man named Paul Garrett.
I'd met him twice — he was a consultant we'd used for a project in London.
The message was—" He stopped.
"It read like something more than professional."
I stared at him.
"I never—" I started.
"I know." He looked up.
"I know that now.
I had Felix look into it six months after you left, when I was trying to understand what had happened.
Garrett had sent the same message to four different women that year.
It was something he did.
A habit.
Harmless, apparently, to everyone except the husbands who found it."
"You thought I was having an affair."
"I convinced myself I did."
"And instead of asking me—"
"I said four words and let you walk into the rain." His voice was flat.
Not self-pitying.
Just accurate.
"I was wrong.
I was a coward.
I told myself I was being decisive and I was being a coward."
Liam was arranging the sugar packets into a line by color, deeply absorbed.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.
"When you found the message.
Why didn't you just ask me?"
Damon was quiet for a moment.
"Because I was afraid of what it would mean if it was true," he said.
"And I didn't know how to be afraid of something.
So I made it into a decision instead."
It was the most honest thing I had ever heard him say.
The food came.
Liam ate with the focused efficiency of a child who has priorities.
Damon watched him the way you watch something you are still learning is real.
"He talks a lot," Damon said quietly.
"Constantly."
"About dinosaurs."
"Mostly.
Sometimes trains.
Last month it was the water cycle."
"The water cycle."
"He saw a video at daycare.
He explained evaporation to Ruth for forty-five minutes."
Damon almost smiled.
It didn't quite make it all the way, but it was close.
"I want to be in his life," he said.
"I'm not going to pretend I know what that looks like yet.
But I want it."
"I know."
"And I want—" He stopped.
Looked at his coffee.
"I'm not going to ask for things I haven't earned.
But I want you to know that what I said four years ago — I have never said anything I regretted more."
Liam looked up from his eggs.
"Are you sad?"
Damon looked at him.
"A little."
Liam considered this.
Then he picked up Bun and placed him on Damon's side of the table.
"Bun helps," he said, and went back to his hash browns.
Damon looked at the rabbit sitting on the table in front of him.
He didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
I looked at my son, who had just given his most prized possession to a man he had known for less than twelve hours because the man looked sad, and I thought: this is who you are.
This is who you became without him.
Without the Gold Coast mansion and the gilded frames and the four cruel words.
You became someone who gives his rabbit to sad strangers.
I thought: I did something right.
"Okay," I said.
"Here's what I think."
Damon looked at me.
"I think we take this slowly.
I think Liam comes first in every decision.
I think you and I have a lot of conversations that are going to be uncomfortable and we have them anyway." I paused.
"And I think Marcus Vale needs to understand, clearly, that whatever he was building — it's done."
"I'll handle Marcus."
"I know you will.
But I want to be in the room when you do."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"Okay," he said.
"And Damon." I waited until he was looking at me directly.
"If you ever — ever — say something to that boy that makes him feel like he is not wanted.
If you ever look at him the way you looked at me that night—"
"I won't."
"I need you to understand what I will do."
"I do understand." His voice was very quiet.
"Claire.
I understand."
I held his gaze for another moment.
Then I picked up my tea.
Liam had finished his eggs and was now attempting to balance a sugar packet on Bun's head.
"Mama," he said.
"Can we go see the lake?"
I looked at Damon.
"I know a good spot," he said.
Liam slid out of the booth.
"Does Bun need a coat?
It might be cold."
"Bun will be fine," I said.
"You don't know that," Liam said seriously.
Damon picked up Bun from the table and tucked him carefully inside his coat pocket so just the ears showed.
"Better?" he said.
Liam examined this arrangement with great seriousness.
"Yes," he decided.
"That's good."
We left the diner.
Outside, the November sky had lifted slightly.
Not warm.
Not bright.
But the particular quality of gray that sometimes, if you look at it right, is almost silver.
Liam walked between us on the sidewalk.
He reached up and took my hand without looking.
Then, after half a block, he reached up and took Damon's.
Neither of us said anything.
We just walked.
---
Some things can't be undone — but some things, if you're brave enough to go back, can still be made right.
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