LOGINAnastasia’s POV:He did not tell me where we were going.He just said to wear something I can walk in and be ready at seven and I had learned by now that when Lucas made plans, he had thought them through in the particular thorough way he thought through everything and the best thing to do was let him.Mrs. Hartley came for the children.Noah negotiated his bedtime immediately upon her arrival and Zoe told her where everything was with the efficiency of someone who had prepared a briefing and Mrs. Hartley accepted both with the patient professionalism that made her invaluable.Lucas was waiting by the car.Dark jacket. No tie. The version of himself that had stopped performing anything.He looked at me when I came out and did the thing with his face that I had stopped trying to intercept before it landed.“You look good,” he said.“You always say that,” I said.“It’s always true,” he said.We drove across the city and I watched the streets and tried to figure out where we were going a
Anastasia’s POV:The community center opened on a morning that was cold and clear and the kind of bright that made everything look deliberate.We arrived early.Lucas drove and the children were in the back seat and Zoe was wearing the grey coat Victoria had bought her because Zoe had told Victoria she needed a coat for important occasions and Victoria had taken this seriously and produced something that was both warm and exactly what Zoe would have chosen herself.Noah was wearing his suit.He had decided this was a suit occasion and nobody had argued because Noah in his suit with both straps on his backpack was one of the most earnest things I had ever seen and I was not going to take that from him.The building looked exactly as I had drawn it.That was the thing that still surprised me every time, not that it existed, but that it looked exactly like what I had imagined. The east wall windows catching the morning light. The old stone detail along the entrance. The garden at the sid
Anastasia’s POV:They came to dinner together.Not as something they had announced or explained. Marcus just texted and asked if they could come for dinner and I said yes and they arrived together with Marcus carrying wine and Elena carrying flowers she had clearly chosen carefully and they stood in the doorway and I looked at them and read the room the way I always did.Something had shifted.Not resolved. Not finished. But shifted in the way that things shifted when two people had been having a conversation for long enough that they had stopped performing it and started meaning it.Noah let them in because he had heard the knock and considered answering doors one of his responsibilities and he looked at Elena and said hi and she said hello and he asked if she brought anything and Marcus said wine and Noah said that’s for grown ups and Marcus said correct and Noah accepted this and went back to what he was doing.Zoe came down the stairs.She looked at Elena.Elena looked at Zoe.The
Anastasia’s POV:Victoria called me laughing.Not the Victoria laugh I had been used to in the early years, the one that was controlled and arrived at appropriate moments and contained itself properly. This was an actual laugh, surprised out of her, the kind that happened when something caught you before you could manage it.“What did she say to you?” I said.“She called me on the house phone,” Victoria said. “She asked Diane for the number and Diane gave it to her because apparently Diane has also given up trying to anticipate Zoe.”“What did she say?” I said.“She told me,” Victoria said, and I could hear her still catching her breath, “that she had been thinking about it and she had decided that I should come to the groundbreaking when the community center opens because I’m part of the family that built it.”I sat down.“She said that,” I said.“She said and I’m quoting precisely because I wrote it down immediately, “you are the grandmother and the grandmother should be there when
Anastasia’s POV:She told me in my kitchen while I was making coffee.Not with ceremony. Not sitting me down or building toward it. She just walked in, put her bag on the counter, looked at me and said it.“I’m pregnant.”I put the coffee down.She looked at me with the expression she wore when she had been holding something large and had finally put it on a surface where someone else could help carry it.“How long have you known?” I said.“Four days,” she said. “I took three tests because I did not trust the first two.”“Did they all say the same thing?” I said.“Obviously,” she said. “That’s why I’m telling you.”I looked at her.She looked back.“Are you happy?” I said.She pressed her lips together in the way she did when something was real enough that she was not going to be casual about it.“Terrified,” she said. “And yes. Both.”I came around the counter and hugged her and she held on properly and I felt her exhale into my shoulder the way she did when she had been holding hers
Anastasia’s POV:Gerard met the children on a Sunday that smelled like cut grass and Lucas had been quietly dreading for three weeks.Not dreading in the way of something he did not want. Dreading in the way of something he wanted so much that the possibility of it going wrong had become its own specific weight. I had watched him manage it the way he managed things that cost him something, with the particular stillness of a man holding himself together in a public space and hoping nobody looked too closely.I had looked closely.I always did.We met at a park on the north end of the city because parks were neutral and children could run if they needed to and the open air meant nobody felt trapped and I had suggested it and Lucas had said yes immediately in the tone that meant he was relieved someone had made the decision.Gerard was already there when we arrived.He was sitting on a bench near the entrance with his hands on his knees and he stood when he saw us and for a moment before
Anastasia’s POV:Simone called at exactly eight forty three the next morning while I was standing in my kitchen in my pajamas staring at the coffee machine like it had personally offended me.“Tell me everything,” she said before I finished saying hello. “And I mean everything. Dean told me Lucas c
Anastasia’s POV:I wore the burgundy dress.Simone had picked it out three weeks ago during one of our Saturday shopping trips that were less about buying things and more about reclaiming the version of me that used to have opinions about what she put on her body. It was fitted without being aggres
Anastasia’s POV:“You have paint on your face.”I looked up from the mood board spread across my desk and found Celeste Dupont standing in my office doorway in a cream blazer and reading glasses pushed up on her head, looking at me the way she looked at everything, like she had already figured it o
Anastasia’s POV:“If you tell her about this meeting I will make sure you never work in this city again. Do you understand me?”I stood completely still in the entrance of my own home with my keys still in my hand and my heart doing something complicated inside my chest.That was my husband’s voice







