Page 86 of Roadrunner

He looked at Della.

She smiled at him. It arrived a half second late but he didn’t notice. “Nothing, baby,” she said. Her voice was steady. Entirely steady.

He looked at us both one more time with mild suspicion.

Then he slid off the sofa and went to find Riley.

Della and I stood in the kitchen and listened to his footsteps go down the hallway.

Then she turned to me.

Her eyes were wet. Just at the edges. She was holding the rest of it together by sheer force of will, which was the most Della thing she had ever done.

She opened her mouth.

She closed it.

She looked at the hallway where Arthur had gone.

From the living room, we heard Riley say something. We heard Arthur respond. We heard Riley say something else, quieter, and then the particular sound of a boy laughing at something a man said.

Della looked at me.

I looked at her.

“Della,” I said quietly.

She held up one hand.

She needed a moment.

I gave her one.

She pressed her fingers to her lips. She breathed. She looked at the ceiling briefly and then back at me.

“Is it possible?” she asked. Her voice was almost nothing.

I looked at the hallway.

I thought about a hotel room I didn’t remember entering. A ceiling I didn’t recognize. A notebook with careful handwriting and words I couldn’t see around.

Wonderful, he’d written.

I thought about Arthur. About every version of him I’d watched grow from something small into someone I recognized completely and couldn’t always explain.

I thought about Riley’s hands on a wrench.

Arthur’s hands on a wrench.

I looked at Della.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

She held my gaze.

“But it’s possible,” I said. “Maybe.” I thought of the timeline. Counted months. Sex. “Not really.”

She closed her eyes.