Page 77 of Something Like Shelter

And I had to agree with her.

“Does he know?”

“Does he know what?”

“About Adelaide’s father and that whole situation?”

“No. I mean, I wasn’t deliberately keeping it from him. But we went from just client and contractor to… a lot more really quickly. Then I got sick, and…”

“You do plan to tell him, right?”

“Of course. I don’t want to keep anything from him.”

“And you have nothing to be embarrassed about. He was the bad guy here, not you.”

“I know.” Maybe there’d been a time back when the whole situation blew up when I’d been trying to blame myself for what happened. I guess because the person really at fault refused to take any responsibility for his actions and their consequences. That was a long time ago now, though. I was a new person now.

“I know it will probably be awkward, but if he’s going to be a part of your life and a sort of father figure to Adelaide, he really should know the whole story.”

“What story?” Owen asked, coming in the front door to a Golden Retriever who danced around his feet, nails tapping, tail wagging.

“Hey, Owen!” Gracie greeted. “I am heading out. Do you want me to walk Tuna before I go?”

“Actually, I could use some exercise after being stuck in bed for days. You up?”

“Yeah,” Owen said. “Sounds good.”

“Okay. I’m out then. Love you, pumpkin,” she said, rubbing Adelaide’s cheek. “Love you too,” she said to me. “You too, Owen.”

“Back at you,” Owen said. “I’ll grab the bottles of water.”

“I’ll grab the carriage.”

And it all felt so… normal. Domestic. Like we’d been doing it every evening since Adelaide was born.

“I wasn’t trying to change the subject, you know,” I said as we walked. Adelaide was wide awake and watching the sky. Tuna was sniffing every inch of the street.

“Hm?”

“When you came in the house and asked what we were talking about. I wasn’t changing the topic. I just wanted to get Gracie on her way before I, um, talked to you about something.”

“Uh oh,” he said, back tensing.

“It’s nothing bad. I just… I feel like I owe you the truth about, well, everything that, you know, created Adelaide.”

“Honey, you don’t owe me anything. I would like to know if you want to tell it, but that doesn’t have to be right now. Or a week or month or even year from now.”

“I don’t mind talking about it. It’s not as sore a subject as it used to be.”

When I didn’t immediately figure out how to launch into such a complicated conversation, Owen spoke. “I saw when you started dating someone. Two mugs instead of one, whiskey next to your wine, extra toothbrush. That probably sounds a lot creepier than I intended,” he said, wincing.

“No, it sounds like you’re observant. Which happens to be a quality I really admire in people. So, yeah, I was seeing someone. Obviously.” I gestured to Adelaide, who was desperately trying to shove her foot into her mouth.

“How’d you two meet?”

“That’s the part where I am a little bit at fault with this whole mess of a situation,” I admitted. “Chase was the guy who essentially has the same job as Martin, but in the London office.”

“And you’re not supposed to date coworkers?”