"I want to believe you," Aaron said. "That is the most dangerous sentence I have said since October."
January brought ice to Charlotte, rare enough to make the city theatrical. School closed for two days. Lily built a snowman the size of a shrub and named it Mr. Patel as a science joke only she found hilarious. Aaron worked from home. Simone worked from home. They passed each other in the hallway with the careful choreography of people sharing a building after a fire.
In counseling, Dr. Okonkwo asked Aaron what staying would require.
"It would require me to stop auditioning every soft moment for evidence of another lie," Aaron said. "I don't know if I can. I look at her packing Lily's lunch and I think, she packed lunches the whole time she was meeting him. Competence is not character."
"And what would leaving require," Dr. Okonkwo asked.
Aaron's voice roughened. "It would require me to explain to Lily why Daddy lives somewhere else without teaching her that love is a thing adults break when they are lonely. It would require me to become a weekend father in the city where I thought I was building a whole life. It would require me to admit that the man who ran into my arms —" He stopped. Corrected. "That the girl who ran into my arms at pickup inherited a fracture she did not choose."
Simone, listening, put her face in her hands. Dr. Okonkwo did not rush to comfort either of them. The clock on the wall did its small indifferent work.
February: Valentine's Day approached like a joke in poor taste. Aaron told Simone not to buy him anything. Simone bought Lily a stack of books instead and took her to dinner at the pizza place with the arcade, leaving Aaron the house and a silence he filled by cleaning the garage until his shoulders ached.