He bet she would’ve liked that analogy.

He could picture Sebastian and Octavia playing on the porch with their little cars and trucks and animal toys, watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. The yard was plenty big enough for a dog, or even two. Darius and Jen could come and stay; he could almost hear Darius’s big laugh as he grilled. Plenty of room for everyone.

And, in the study with the broken fireplace, a little girl could curl up on that window seat and read all day. She could color in the sunroom and make a fairy house under the big maple trees, the way Lauren had told him she had done as a child. Stand at the counter and help Sumi and Ben make kimchi.

This little girl . . . she was not Octavia. She was . . . his.

His future daughter. Shy like him, black hair, pretty eyes. She’d love to read and build things. She could sleep in the front bedroom with the big windows and run down the ornate stairs on Christmas morning. She could sit in the deep claw-foot tub at bathtime, and he would push her hair back from her face as he tucked her in at night, and—

“I’ll take it,” he said to Frank. “Excuse me a minute.”

He bolted outside and stood under the bare trees, looking toward the water. His heart jackhammered in his chest, and for a few seconds, his vision blurred, but the cold air helped. It wasn’t a red-out. It was something like panic. He was breathing too fast. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox.

“I’m sorry, Lauren,” he said out loud. “I’m sorry.” He leaned against the pine tree, its bark rough against his back.

That little girl was the first time he’d pictured a future without his wife that wasn’t bleak and solitary. The first time he’d imagined the possibility of being happy without Lauren. Of loving someone not linked to her. The first time he’d imagined having a child who wasn’t theirs.

He took in a slow breath and let it out, then another. Wiped his eyes.

Don’t be a loser, he could almost hear her saying. This is exactly the point.

31

Joshua

Month twelve

February

THE RUSH OF buying the house carried him along for a few weeks. He’d shown it to Jen and her crew. Sebastian had proclaimed it “the best house in the world for hide-and-seek, Uncle Josh!” and Donna had clucked over how extravagant it was, “but you deserve it, of course.” His own mom had simply told him how proud of him she was, and then picked out the room she’d like “when Sumi, Ben and I come here for two weeks every August.” Ben proclaimed it perfect for Josh.