Page 40 of Counting the Days

“Fathers have been leaving their children to go off and hunt forhundreds of thousandsof years, and we’ve somehow managed to survive as a species.”

“And who did those fathers leave their kids with? Their mothers and grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins,an entire tribe. Not one stressed-out adult in a house by themselves. Our current system is so broken….”

Rhea felt heat rising in her face. How could he sit there naked and sound so certain about something so vast and unknowable? The sky darkened to match her shifting mood. She looked up at the clouds rolling in.

“Well, you could still spend time with them on the weekends…they would still feel like they had a father.”

“The truth is, we don’t know what they would feel. We tell ourselves kids are perfectly fine with the status quo, but I watch my nieces and nephews sob whenever their parents leave. They don’t want to be with a babysitter or in daycare or elementary school with a rotating cast of underpaid teachers. I certainly didn’t. I wanted to be with the two people who brought me into the world, the people who supposedly wanted me. And yet, I was constantly dropped off at school or summer camp. Children aren’t raised by people who love them, they’re raised by people who arepaid to spend timewith them—”

“Oh, come on, everyone goes to school—”

“Yeah, andeveryone’s fucked. We are in the middle of a severe mental health crisis—depression, drug addiction, suicide. Whatever we’re doing isn’t working. Just becauseeveryfive-year-old is forced into a building full of strangers doesn’t mean it’s good for them, and I can’t—I can’t do it—”

“Well, what about the human experience? You never want to know what it feels like to hold a little sleeping body? Or read to your toddler in bed?” Her voice was filled with too muchemotion, but she needed him to be less concrete on a subject that was utterly fluid and ethereal.

“That all sounds amazing, it honestly makes my heart ache”—his voice cracked—“but I can’t bring an innocent person here and harm them and the planet just ’cause I want to ‘hold a little sleeping body.’ ”

“So, you want humanity to just die out then?”

“Well…I honestly look at what human beings are and what they do to each other, and can’t help but see the flaw in deciding to create more of them. If all humans disappeared tomorrow, every other living thing on the planet would rejoice. Literallyevery single specieswould be better off without us.”

“What about…?” Rhea paused for far too long. “Um…injured…birds…who get rescued by rehabilitation centers…only to be…reintroduced back into the wild?”

Rhea suspected he was remaining silent out of kindness; her pathetic scraping to find human value on planet earth was too weak to merit a response.

“I’ve just never heard a reason someone wanted to have a kid that wasn’t…entirely selfish,” he said softly.

“Well, what about wanting to learn how to beless selfishby taking care of someone else?”

“Usingan innocent childto learn how to be less selfish? Sounds a little selfish to me.” He clamped his lips down as if to block more words from leaving them; a look of regret flashed across his face.

Wow.Was he calling her selfish? Was he calling all parents self-centered, planet-hating monsters? She imposed a tight smile and emitted a sound she hoped would communicate she was thoughtfully taking in what he’d said while respectfully disagreeing. However, she feared the sound came out wrong and revealed her rage.

“Sorry, I—I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you. I’m happy for you—that you know what you want…. I don’t mean to preach—”

“No, it’s okay. I asked.”

Spring water flowed in through tubes in the rock wall, and even though it was “heated by the earth’s inner fires,” Rhea felt ice-cold. They sat watching the waves crash for as long as they could stand it.

“It’s getting pretty late, maybe we should—” he began.

“Yeah, you go ’head, I’m gonna hang for a bit.”

He paused as if he wanted to say something, but he thought better of it and got out of the water. As he reached for his towel, Rhea caught a glimpse of his perfect penis…a Goldilocks size that was neither disappointingly small nor intimidatingly large and somehow had a commanding presence even in its flaccid state.How dare he have such a stunning penis?

Just as her anger was reaching its peak, arousal stepped in and began to dampen it. Each beautiful inch of Danny was chipping away at her fury. He wrapped himself in a towel while anger and arousal arm-wrestled in her head. She was determined not to let arousal win. She replayed the way he parroted “a little sleeping body.” Was there a hint of condescension?Yeah,she decided,there was. Anger slammed arousal down.

“Good night,” Rhea said coolly, and turned her back on him to blink at the ocean.

She felt him hesitating behind her. She did not want him to leave. She wanted him to stand there forever. As long as he was there, it wasn’t over. There was a chance one of them could say something that would keep the door cracked. One of them could soften their stance, open their mind….

“Good night,” he said, and she heard the soggy sound of wet footsteps receding.

—

Rhea imagined Danny toweling off,getting dressed, and walking back to his room. She took her time with the process, in case he did the same. She waited until she could see him with her mind’s eye locked safely inside his room before she got out of the water. She could not risk bumping into him.

She did not want to bump into Danny Beckett ever again.