"I'm not angry that you had a baby," he said. "I want to start there. I'm not angry that you gave her up. I couldn't be. I think about you at twenty, by yourself in that house on Gilpin Street, with your father praying over you and that guy gone to Texas, and I want to—" His jaw worked. "I want to go back and find that girl and buy her a sandwich and drive her anywhere she wants to go. That's what I feel about that part."
Natalie looked down at her coffee.
"And I'm not even really angry that you didn't tell me at the beginning," he said. "I get it. Third date, fifth date, you don't lead with that. I didn't tell you about my dad's drinking for almost a year. People have things. I know that."
"But," she said.
"But Emma." He set the mug down. "The hospital. That's the part I can't get past. Not because it was a lie. Because of when it was. That was the most important night of my life, Nat. That was the night I became somebody's father. And I was standing right there next to you holding those stupid ice chips, and the nurse asked you a question, and you looked right at me, and you lied. You didn't just lie to her. You made me part of it. I've been carrying it around for twelve years without knowing. Every time anybody asks how Emma's birth went, I tell them. First baby, nineteen hours, she came out furious. I've told that story a hundred times. And it was never true. Not the way I thought."
"I know."