“I don’t know what to think. In the moment I was upset that she was talking to Noelle like an angry football coach. Now I worry I’ve missed something and I need to get a second opinion on Noelle’s condition. But if I do that, I worry that I would be giving Noelle false hope. I hate this. I hate that I don’t know what I’m doing. I hate that I’m alone in this.”

“It doesn’t sound like you are,” Rene pointed out. “At least you weren’t. It sounds like Lila was taking charge in a place where she knows more than you do.”

He shook his head. “You weren’t there. You didn’t have to watch your girlfriend make your daughter cry. I have to put Noelle above everything else.”

“It sounds like Lila was doing that, too.” Remy had his arms crossed over his chest. “Do you think she didn’t understand this could go sideways? She knew how touchy you are about Noelle.”

“I’m not touchy. Okay, if I’m touchy it’s because she’s fragile. She lost everything in that accident.” He wasn’t sure why he was defending himself. “I don’t know what her future holds. I only know that I have to make life as comfortable for her as possible, and Lila disagrees with me. She seems to think that I should drop my daughter off in Austin and not look back.”

Remy chuckled. “Somehow I don’t see that. Lila wants Noelle to have as much of a life as she possibly can. No one ever got anything done because they were comfortable. Comfort is something you earn later in life.”

“She earned it by surviving,” Armie insisted.

Rene shook his head, leaning back. “Wow, it’s interesting how different our reactions can be. I was laying there bleeding out on that concrete and all I could think about was getting another couple of moments, another few days. I’ve been comfortable and it’s held me back. Time is a funny thing. It seems long and never-ending in the beginning, and then you realize it’s gone by in a flash and you can’t ever get it back. I worry Noelle is too young to understand that. Can I ask you a question?”

“You’ve asked me plenty. What’s one more?” He was sure whatever it was would make him look like an idiot. The last few days of his life had been one long session of self-doubt. This was what he truly resented about what Lila had done. His life had seemed calmer. It had normalized. Then she’d walked in and shaken it all up, and he didn’t like where he’d landed.