Page 18 of Love He Denied
"Yes, sir. Do you want me to forward it to the grants team?"
"No. I want a meeting. With whoever runs it. This week if possible."
A pause. "You want to take the meeting yourself?"
He looked at the proposal on his desk. At the list of schools. At P.S. 34, printed in twelve-point font.
This wasn't about getting Charlotte back. He was past the point of thinking he could strategize his way into her forgiveness, or at least he was trying to be past it, which was a different thing. It was a harder thing, a thing that required constant vigilance against his own worst instincts.
This was about becoming someone who deserved the words she'd written on that folded paper. Someone who paid attention. Someone who showed up. Someone who knew the name of the boy who drew dragons during math.
He wasn't that person yet. But the Gallison Foundation was a place to start, Charlotte's school was on the list, and for the first time in six months, Dominic was interested in building something that wasn't about him.
"Yes," he said. "Set it up."
He hung up. Opened the drawer. Looked at the folded paper one more time.
I choose you, Dominic.
He closed the drawer and turned back to the Gallison proposal. He started reading it again from the beginning.
CHAPTER 9
CHARLOTTE
Charlotte was running late. Five minutes, maybe seven, but she hated being late the same way she hated typos in her lesson plans, wrinkled bulletin boards and anything that suggested she wasn't holding it together. Holding it together was her primary occupation these days. Teaching fourth grade was the secondary one.
She jogged up the steps of P.S. 34 with her coffee sloshing in its cup and her bag sliding off her shoulder. Her hair — always her hair — was escaping from the clip she'd wrestled it into at six a.m. Curls were not designed for punctuality. They had their own agenda, their own timeline, their own cheerful resistance to any tool or product meant to contain them.
She passed the front office, waved to Linda at the desk, and ducked into her classroom just as the first bus was pulling up outside.
Oliver was already there. He was always early. His grandmother dropped him off on her way to work at the hospital, which meant Oliver had twenty minutes of empty classroom before anyone else arrived. He used them to draw. Today he was hunched over his desk with a green coloredpencil, adding scales to what appeared to be a dragon riding a skateboard.
"Morning, Oliver."
"Morning, Miss Hoffman. I gave your dragon sneakers."
She leaned over his shoulder. The dragon was, indeed, wearing high-tops. Red ones. "Those are excellent sneakers."
"They're Jordans. My cousin has Jordans."
"Your cousin has good taste." She set her bag down, took a sip of her coffee, and began writing the morning agenda on the whiteboard.Math: fractions review. Reading: chapter 8 of Charlotte's Web. Art: free draw.The routine was an anchor. She'd learned that in the months since the wedding — routine wasn't boring, it was a lifeline. A series of predictable, manageable tasks that kept her moving forward when the alternative was standing still and letting everything catch up.
The kids filed in. Backpacks, lunchboxes, sneakers squeaking on linoleum. Charlotte stood at the door and greeted each one by name:Morning, Anna. Hey, Michael, nice haircut. Sadia, is that a new backpack?— and the rhythm of it settled her the way nothing else could. These kids didn't know about the wedding. They didn't know about Dominic, Jacqueline, the name on the altar or the dress on the bridal suite floor.
After school, she stayed late to work on the fundraiser.
P.S. 34 was hosting its annual spring gala. A modest affair by any standard, held in the gymnasium with streamers, donated food and a silent auction stocked with gift baskets the teachers assembled themselves. Charlotte had volunteered to co-chair the planning committee, partly because she believed in it and partly because she needed her evenings filled with something other than her own thoughts.
Kate was on the committee too, because Kate was on every committee. And Eric Cho, the fifth-grade science teacher, who'dbeen helping Charlotte rearrange folding tables in the gym and kept finding excuses to stand close to her.
"So I'm thinking the auction tables go along the back wall," Charlotte said, studying the gym with her hands on her hips. "And the food stations here, near the entrance, so people eat first and then get generous."
"Strategic. I like it." Eric was leaning against the bleachers, arms crossed, grinning at her. He was tall, with wire-rim glasses and an easy, self-deprecating humor that made the fifth graders adore him. He coached the school's chess club, wore periodic table ties on Fridays and had once built an actual volcano for a science demo that set off the fire alarm and earned him a standing ovation from fifty ten-year-olds.
He was, by any reasonable measure, a good man. A kind man. The kind of man Charlotte should want.
She didn't want anyone. She was done wanting. Wanting had gotten her a five-figure wedding dress, a thumbs-up emoji and a name that wasn't hers spoken at an altar.
