Page 99 of Collateral Damage
The kitchen is marginally better, the ceiling fan churning the air in slow, heavy circles. Ava moves to the pitcher of lemonade Carla made, but her hands are clumsy. Reese leans against the counter, looking as relaxed as if he’s back at the ranch, while Bandit collapses onto the cold tile with a dramatic huff.
The conversation flows—work, the new office, Reese ribbing me about a rough landing in the Pilatus. But I’m watching my wife. She’s laughing at the right cues, but she’s staring at her lemonade like she’s forgotten how to drink it. She’s miles away.
She’s performing. She’s laughing at the right cues and refilling glasses, but there’s a distance behind her eyes that’s growing by the minute. She’s on a frequency I haven’t seen since the cabin.
Reese is mid-story about a job in Savannah, his voice steady and familiar over the low hum of the ceiling fan. Verity is laughing, leaning back in her chair, while Bandit has finally surrendered to the heat, rolling onto his back on the tile with his paws in the air.
On the surface, it’s exactly the kind of afternoon we’ve had dozens of times before.
But Ava isn't in it. She’s sitting perfectly still, her fingers tight around her glass, watching the condensation bead on the surface. She isn't eating; she isn't even looking at Reese.
Without a word, she sets her glass down. The sharp clink of the coaster hitting the marble is the only warning I get before she’s on her feet. She doesn't offer an excuse or a "be right back." She just dashes out of the room, her footsteps fading fast down the hallway.
The story stops. The laughter dies in Verity's throat. Reese doesn't even finish his sentence; he just looks at the empty doorway, then at me.
There isn’t a drop of irony in his voice when he repeats the words I once told him. “Your wife needs you,” he says.
I’m on my feet before he finishes the sentence.
Ava
The downstairs bathroom is cool and quiet, and it smells faintly of the lemon verbena diffuser Carla keeps on the shelf above the sink. I sit on the edge of the tub and wait for the world to stop tilting.
It doesn’t.
I press the back of my hand to my mouth and breathe through my nose the way I tell my patients to breathe—slowly, deliberately, giving the body enough time to catch up.
For the last two months, I’ve been so busy adjusting to life with Silas, I haven’t once stopped to ask myself why nothing smells right, why everything feels too loud, and why Bandit—who smells perfectly fine by any objective measure—sent me fleeing my own kitchen.
I look at myself in the mirror above the sink and breathe out a prayer that he will understand. Even through the wood of the door, I can feel the weight of his presence. He isn't just standing there; he’s waiting, his senses likely already screaming that something has shifted in the air between us.
"I’m fine, Silas. You can come in," I say.
The door opens slowly, as if he’s unsure of what he will find. He doesn't look panicked, but there’s a depth in his eyes that tells me he’s been paying closer attention than I have. For six months, he’s been reading me better than I’ve been reading myself.
"Are you sick?" he says quietly. There’s no alarm in his voice.
"I was this morning," I say. "Before you were up. I wanted to take a test before I said anything."
Silas steps inside and closes the door behind him. He looks at me for a long moment. Just me. Nothing else in the world seems to exist for him. He doesn't ask for the result. He just takes both my hands in his.
“Have you looked yet?” he asks.
I shake my head.
He releases a slow breath. "You want to wait until they’re gone?”
I lean my head against his shoulder, careful not to place too much pressure on the right side. “I really don’t know.”
“So we pray," he says.
We bow our heads together in the quiet of the bathroom. He prays the way he prays for everything—without performance, without pretense. Just a humble man talking to God in a small, tiled room while the heat of August presses hard against the window. He prays that whatever the outcome, the Lord will give us the strength to accept it. That His will would be done. That we would trust Him, either way.
My hands aren’t entirely steady as I open the drawer. The test is where I left it, face down, hidden behind a box of Band-Aids.
I pick it up. I breathe. I turn it over.
All the air leaves my lungs.
