Chapter 6: The Conversation That Couldn't Be Taken Back
The door at the top of the stairs was slightly open.
Daniel knocked anyway.
"Come in."
Amy was sitting at the small table by the window.
She had a mug in front of her and both hands wrapped around it.
She was wearing a gray sweater he didn't recognize — something she must have packed — and her hair was pulled back simply.
She looked tired.
She looked like herself in a way she hadn't looked at the gala, where everything had been arranged and polished and performed.
She looked at him and didn't say anything.
He stepped inside.
He didn't sit down.
He stood near the door with his coat still on, because sitting down felt like assuming something he hadn't been given permission to assume.
"You found me," she said.
"Newport.
You mentioned it once.
Two years ago, maybe.
You said Claire told you it was the kind of place nobody would think to look."
Amy looked at her mug.
"I didn't think you were listening."
"I wasn't listening well enough.
I know that."
Silence.
"Amy, I saw the photograph."
"I know."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She looked up.
"When?"
The question landed exactly where it was meant to.
"When you were in London?" she continued.
"When you were in Dallas?
When you canceled dinner the third time and said you'd make it up to me?
When you promised me the weekend and left at six in the morning?" Her voice was steady.
Not angry — something past angry.
"I tried to tell you the night I found out.
You were on a call.
I tried to tell you the next morning.
You were already running late.
I kept the appointment card on the kitchen counter for eleven days.
You never asked what it was."
Daniel said nothing.
"I carried this alone for four months," Amy said.
"Not because I wanted to.
Because every time I tried to find a moment, there wasn't one.
And then I started to wonder — if I tell him now, will he stay because he wants to, or because he feels he has to?
And I didn't want that.
I didn't want to be the thing that trapped you."
"You wouldn't have been trapping me."
"You were dancing with her, Daniel."
The words sat in the room.
"I know what I saw," Amy said.
"I know what those messages said.
I'm not asking you to explain them right now.
I'm just telling you that I stood in that ballroom with your child's photograph in my purse, and I watched you smile at her, and something in me just — stopped."
Daniel reached into his breast pocket.
He put the ultrasound photograph on the table between them.
Amy looked at it.
"I want to be here," he said.
"I want to be here for this.
For you.
I know I have no right to ask you to believe that right now.
I know I have to show you, not say it.
But I need you to know that I came here because I want to be here, not because I feel I have to be."
Amy was quiet for a long moment.
"Vanessa," she said finally.
"I ended it.
Whatever it was — I ended it.
Last night, before I left the gala."
"What was it?"
He didn't look away.
"I don't know how to answer that in a way that won't hurt you."
"Try anyway."
"It was — attention.
She paid attention to the parts of my life that felt important, and she made me feel like those parts were enough.
Like I didn't need to be anything else." He stopped.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like you found someone who only needed the version of you that was easy."
He didn't argue.
"And I was here," Amy said.
"Needing the whole version.
The one that comes home and cancels the trip and sits with me through the hard parts."
"Yes."
"That's not a small thing, Daniel."
"I know."
She looked at the photograph again.
Then she looked at him.
"I'm not ready to come home," she said.
"I need time here.
I need to think."
"I understand."
"But I'm not saying never.
I'm saying not yet."
Something in his chest moved.
"Can I stay in Newport?" he said.
"Not here.
Somewhere nearby.
I won't push.
I just—" He stopped.
"I don't want to be far away right now."
Amy considered this for a moment.
"There's a motel on the main road," she said.
"Ruth mentioned it."
"I'll find it."
He picked up the ultrasound photograph from the table and held it out to her.
She took it.
He turned toward the door.
"Daniel."
He stopped.
"Vanessa sent me something," Amy said.
"Three weeks ago.
An email.
I didn't respond to it, and I didn't tell you, because I didn't know what to do with it yet."
He turned back.
"She told me she was pregnant," Amy said.
May you like
The room went very quiet.
"She said it was yours."
