Page 90 of Counting the Days

She pointed to the small image in the corner: a woman and a man sitting in front of acampfire, the man a spooky Danny doppelgänger.

“In high school, Ireallywanted this. I wanted to meet my soulmate, my person, someone who made me feel less alone in the world, like I wasn’t crazy, like I wasn’t broken and my flaws only made me more perfect. I wanted to find a man I could laugh with—someone smart, and trustworthy, and dependable.I wanted to find you, Danny.And I did. I found you. I had you. And I lost you.

“And I can’t say I one hundred percent don’t wanna be a mom anymore ’cause the truth is, I’m unsure about almost everything. But the one thing I am sure of is you. You are theone thingI know I want and havealways wanted…and if that means a life without children, I accept that completely and will never bring them up again…. I didn’t put kids on this vision board. I didn’t want kids in high school, and I know I might’ve just grown up and changed my mind. But I honestly wonder if Imade my mind change ’cause…I just wanted to benormal.”

Her chest was heaving; she was trying to get oxygen into her lungs. She stopped talking; there were no more words to offer him. She took in his unreadable eyes and suddenly became aware she was standing in front of an awfully attractive man holding a vision board she’d made twenty years ago.

“I…,” Danny began.

She became aware of the gorgeous Craftsman behind him, the three women staring out the window, the black curl falling over his enigmatic eyes, his body language: He was pulled back away from her, his hands helplessly hanging by his sides. She was too late. She had not said the right words. He needed her to say she was 100 percent certain she did not want to be a mom anymore, but she could not say that; she could never lie to him again. There was no fixing this. She took a step backward toward her car.

“I don’t know what to say, Rhea, can I…? Can you give me a little bit of time to process everything you just said?”

His words hit like an arrow. She let out a soft, guttural moan as she took another step back. Her gaze swept over him—his mouth, his body—and she ached with longing. She was fifteen years old again, trying to shake her mother awake, but her mother was gone forever; he was so close but out of reach.

“Of course, yeah, sorry for barging in on you like this—”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m so glad you came over, I just—I’m sorry…. I just need a little bit of time,” he repeated.

She got in her car. With a shaking hand, she moved her gearshift in and out of drive six times and drove away.

—

Danny reentered his house; hissisters did not even try to pretend like they had not been watching the whole time.

“What happened?”

“You okay, Dan?”

“What’d she say?”

“Why’d she leave?”

All his nieces and nephews were sprawled on his living room floor in sleeping bags, watchingFrozen. Fourteen little eyes briefly glanced up at their uncle, then resumed watching. On screen, the characters sang “Love Is an Open Door” as Danny shut the door.

Since the breakup, his sisters had been coming over more frequently. They knew his relationship with Rhea had been far shorter than any of his other significant relationships; they also knew the heartbreak was far worse. He greatly appreciated their company. He had grown weary of living in this spacious house by himself. Right before they broke up, he’d wanted to ask Rhea to move in with him, but he hadn’t wanted to scare her. He looked out the window at her taillights receding.

“Can we do anything, Dan?”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Did she wanna make it work?”

“Leave him alone—”

“He might wanna talk about it—”

“Just give him space—”

“We’re here for you….”

“Thanks, I’m, uh, just gonna take a second….” He headed upstairs and closed his bedroom door.

He wanted to fling himself onto his bed and cry into his pillow like a little boy; instead, he sat on the edge of his bed and cried into his hands like a man. It was the first time he had cried about the breakup. He was not very good at crying, almost as if he had been greatly discouraged from the practice when he was young.

He’d spent the last 125 days longing for Rhea with afierceness that was nearly impossible not to satiate. He craved her face and her voice. In order to prevent himself from calling, in his phone, he had changed her first name to Do Not and her last name to Hurt Her.

He was trying not to keep her trapped in a dead end. He was trying to protect her. He felt like he would do anything for her…except the one thing she wanted. He’d heard everything she’d just said, and it really did seem like she had genuinely opened herself up to the possibility of a lifetime without offspring, but how could he go back into that relationship, wondering if she would flip-flop the entire time? He could not survive another breakup. He could not take more months away from her fertility or hear her weeping like she had in his truck and be the cause of all that pain ever again.