He listened because Richard Carter was interesting and because there was something in listening to this man that felt like receiving something he hadn't known was being offered. At one point, Richard stopped mid-sentence and looked at Marcus directly. "You were married," he said. "Not a question." "Yes, sir. My wife passed 3 years ago." "Cancer?" "Yes, Richard was quiet for a moment." "How old?" "31." Another pause.
My Diane was 43. He looked at the television though he wasn't seeing it. There's no good age for it. People say young is worse. I think loss is just loss.
The math doesn't make it better. No, Marcus said it doesn't. You have a daughter. Amara, she's eight. Emily told me she's sharp.
She's the sharpest person I know. And I say that including every adult in my life. Something shifted in Richard's face. something quiet and warm, like a light coming on in a room that had been dim. She sounds like Emily at 8, he said. Emily at 8 used to correct my grammar.
I'd say something and she'd go, "Dad, that's not actually a word. 8 years old. She still does it." Emily said from across the room. You're better at it now, Richard told her. Sneakier.
I learned from the best. He looked at her with the unguarded tenderness of a father who knows exactly what he's looking at and knows he might not have as long to look at it as he'd like. Then he looked back at Marcus. You're good for her, he said. Marcus blinked.
Sir, she talks differently now than she did 2 months ago. He said it plainly without decoration. Emily talks differently when she's carrying something alone than when she's not. I've known her 32 years. I know the difference.
He looked at Marcus. You're the difference. Emily had gone very still across the room. Marcus didn't know what to say to that. He said the true thing.
She's been good for me, too. Richard nodded like the matter was settled. The Reds are going to have a better rotation this year, he said, returning to the television. I don't care what anyone says. I'll take your word for it, Marcus said.
Smart man, Richard said. Emily, get him some of that coffee. the good kind, not the hospital stuff. The hospital stuff tastes like a parking garage. They left together at 4:30. Emily was quiet in the elevator, which Marcus had come to understand as her processing mode.
She went inward when something had moved her, pulled it apart, and looked at the pieces before she'd talk about it. He waited. They walked through the lobby and out into the December cold, and he was reaching for his keys when she said, "He likes you. I know that wasn't a foregone conclusion. He once made my ex-boyfriend sit through a 40-minute interrogation about his credit score.
40 minutes. He had a system. She looked at him sideways. He didn't ask you a single question about your finances. He asked me about the designated hitter rule.
That's the real test. She said the money thing he can look past. But a man's character on the DH rule that's permanent. What did I say that he liked? you said. I understand both arguments and I think reasonable people can disagree.
She shook her head. He told me last year he broke up a friendship of 40 years over the DH rule and you just completely disarmed him with diplomatic neutrality. I genuinely do understand both arguments. I know you do. She stopped walking.
They were in the parking lot halfway to his car and she stopped and turned to face him. Marcus, he stopped too. Yeah, what he said in there about me talking differently. She looked at him directly. He's right.
I do. She paused. I spent a long time thinking that needing people was the same as losing yourself to them. That depending on someone meant giving them the power to undo you. She exhaled.
And then I met you. And you needed nobody. And it was the loneliest thing I'd ever seen. He held her gaze. Is that what you saw?
That's what I saw, she said. a man who had built the most functional, loving, competent life around a hole in the middle of it, and who had no idea the hole was visible. Marcus looked away for a moment. The parking lot, the cold, the ordinary, unremarkable December afternoon. Then back at her, "You fixed that," he said. "For the record, we fixed it." She said, "There's a difference." He looked at her.
She was looking at him. The thing that had been building since November, since a wrist and a shoulder and 32 minutes, and I wasn't sleeping, was fully present now. Undeniable. Both of them standing in the middle of it. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair back from her face.
She didn't move. Her eyes didn't move. Emily, he said. Marcus, I want to say something. Okay.