The whole time, I was falling. All that proximity, all that carefully prescribed intimacy, was fucking kryptonite. I didn’t stand a chance.

Neither will she. She’ll get used to having me around, and she’ll begin to trust me, bit by bit, and she’ll see I’m not going anywhere, and, despite herself, she’ll soften. It might take months, but she’ll soften, and she’ll fall, and she’ll grow to understand that I’m good for her and Tabs. That I can make them happy.

Maybe I’m not an analytical genius so much as an evil genius, because I have an endgame.

Marlowe doesn’t need to know about it just yet, but I have one nonetheless. I think it’s been percolating, dripping into my brain like coffee through a filter, since that awful moment I discovered she had a sick daughter.

My endgame, you see, is that she and Tabby never experience worry or fear or anxiety ever again. Not over money, not over health.

It all ends here.

They’ve paid their dues. They’ve had so much more than their fair share of suffering over the years and, while they may not know it yet, they are fucking done.

Yeah, I realise Tabby will need another replacement valve or two before she’s fully grown, but it will be a different story this time around. She’ll have everything she needs, even before she needs it. She’ll be monitored so vigilantly that a replacement will be a formality, not a calamity.

Obviously, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I don’t even know the kid yet.

That changes now, too.

If the poor little thing is stuck in a hospital room, hooked up to machines, then that’s what I’d call a captive audience.

MARLOWE

Waking up next to Brendan is less charged than last time. There’s no cuddling, for one—it looks like he stuffed a bolster between us after I fell asleep—but I’m hoping that means there won’t be any of the previous fallout, either. No callous words or dismissive behaviour.

I take my bag into the bathroom and change back into a clean set of clothes. Before we left the hospital, Brendan ordered me to bring all my and Tabby’s dirty clothes along for the hotel to launder. I stuff them into the cotton laundry bag in the wardrobe. My pride is not above accepting more clean underwear.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asks, looking me over. He’s back in his pristine t-shirt and blue jeans.

‘Like a different woman,’ I answer honestly. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

He looks away. ‘You never have to thank me.’