Page 145 of ClickBack

I look at the doorway, where I can almost see Byron standing years ago. “I knew it was cruel. I also knew why he chose it. Part of me had been waiting for somebody to say that everything I’d done still hadn’t been enough.”

“Enough for who?”

“That changed depending on the day.” I manage a small smile. “That made it particularly difficult to finish.”

He reaches for my hand. I let him hold it while I find the next thing I need to say.

“I was furious that he put Rae in it. I had tried so hard to keep people from reducing her to how she got here. Then I kept things from her because I thought knowing them would hurt her. I decided which parts she could have.”

Jarrett lowers his eyes to our hands. We have both learned something about deciding what another person can bear.

“When will you talk to her?” he asks.

“When she’s home and we can have some time without Zion. Before any move.”

“Want me around?”

“No. Just us.”

He squeezes my fingers. “You got it.”

I lean against him. He puts his arm behind me and lets me get comfortable without reaching for the remote. For a while, we can hear the neighbor’s garage door through the open window and a child on the sidewalk insisting he is not ready to go inside.

I will have to tell Rae what I knew and when I knew it. She will be able to ask why I let her believe something else. I have imagined that conversation so many times that I can already hear myself trying to explain too much.

“I should write down what I need to say,” I tell him. “So I don’t spend the whole time defending myself.”

“You want something to write on?”

“Not right now.”

He rests his cheek against the top of my head. I close my eyes and let the child outside keep arguing for both of us.

Cam calls while we are clearing away dinner. Jarrett looks at the screen, then at me.

“It’s the trade. I need to take this.”

“I’ll put the rest away.”

He answers beside the table. I can hear enough to know Cam has an update, but Jarrett’s end consists mostly of questions I cannot connect. Which meeting. Who asked for it. Whether Philadelphia has agreed.

He stays where he is when I come back into the room. After another minute, he says, “Send me what you have. I’ll look at it tonight.”

I pull out a chair after he hangs up.

“Is there something you can tell me?”

He sits across from me. “San Antonio wants to move this along. There’s still a third team involved, and Philly hasn’t accepted what they’d get back.”

“What changed?”

“Somebody got more willing to talk. Cam’s trying to find out how much of that is real.”

His phone lights with an email. He opens it, reads, then turns it so I can see the proposed dates without handing me the whole exchange.

“They may want me down there.”

“This is a visit?”