Something was off with me.

Or maybe it was off with Emme—she’d gone quiet after that whole marriage conversation. Was it that? Did it bother her that I had no intention of getting married? Were her feelings hurt? I hoped not. It wasn’t personal—I was crazy about her, and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. There were times I actually thought I was losing my mind because I wanted her so badly. I was constantly thinking about her, always wondering what I could do to make her smile, and keeping my hands off her was nearly impossible. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her…

Except get married. I just couldn’t.

So much about my life had spun off track. In the last couple weeks, I'd had to scrap every plan and dream I’d had for myself. I'd had to accept a completely new reality, map out an entirely different future. It made the ground feel slippery under my feet. Like nothing was certain. Was it too much to ask to hold on to some part of my former life, some piece of my former self?

And wasn't it enough that we were together now? That I felt more for her than I ever had for any woman? That I, Nate Pearson, divorce attorney and commitment-phobe, was in a relationship? I'd told her things last night I’d never told anyone. She knew more about me, the real me, than any human being on the planet. I trusted her. And I was trying hard to be the kind of person she wanted me to be. Wasn't all that enough?

Not to mention the fact that I knew how unlikely it was that a marriage would last, and I’d seen firsthand how shitty divorces could be. They were soul crushing. Heartbreaking. Embarrassing. And really fucking expensive. Frankly, I had no idea why people still bothered to get married in the first place. It's not like you needed the certificate to have kids if you really wanted to. And I didn't want any more kids, anyway. One was plenty.

I glanced over at Emme, who was stone-faced as she stared out the windshield. She probably wanted kids of her own, maybe even two or three of them. And before that, she'd want the big wedding with five hundred guests and twenty-seven bridesmaids and five circus tents and a partridge in a pear tree and whatever other nonsense brides could dream up. I knew that about her. I had always known it.

But I wanted to be with her.

So now what? Did we need to talk about this? Did I owe it to her to make sure she knew how I felt? But what if that was a deal-breaker? What if she broke it off? The chocolate milkshake I’d drunk with my lunch seemed to curdle in my stomach.

I didn’t like thinking about my life without her. I didn’t want to go back to one-night stands with women whose names I could barely recall. And when I thought of her with someone else—my hands tightened on the steering wheel—I wanted to fucking put my fist through the windshield.

I couldn’t lose her. I needed her.

Especially now, when I was turning onto my old street and my nerves were already tying themselves into knots. What would my mother’s mental state be? How would she handle meeting her grandchild? Which version of her would greet us today, the angst-ridden agoraphobe who'd never recovered from the tragic loss of her younger son, or some semblance of the mother I'd once known, who baked amazing chocolate chip cookies and wore a perfume called Happy and laughed at all of Adam’s terrible jokes?

I pulled into the driveway and put the car in park, but didn't turn off the engine.

Emme looked over at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah.” I cleared my throat, which felt tight and scratchy all of a sudden. “Coming here is sometimes difficult."

"I get it."

Of course you do. My throat tightened even more. Why did I feel like I owed her an apology?

Maybe it was the house messing with me. I looked at it through the driver side window, a red brick center entrance colonial with black shutters and white trim. The hydrangea bushes on either side of the front door still had dead brown leaves, but I knew they would bloom bright pink and blue this summer. If I squinted, I could still see my mother cutting them back, my dad mowing the front lawn, my brother and I racing down the driveway on our bikes, our capes flying behind us.

My mother appeared in the living room window. She'd moved the curtain aside and was peering out intently, like a lonely old lady looking for some neighborhood gossip. I couldn't tell if she was wearing gloves or not.

I unbuckled my seatbelt. "Might as well go in.”

Emme covered my hand with hers for a moment but didn't say anything, and I felt a rush of gratitude.

I looked at our hands. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Me too. Do I get to see your old bedroom? Are there, like, posters of Cindy Crawford on the walls?”

Laughing, I shook my head. “You’d be more likely to see nineties movie posters, but I’m pretty sure my mother has taken them all down.”

A few minutes later we approached the front door, which opened before we even stepped onto the porch. My mother stood twisting her hands together, her expression a bit anxious, but at least she wasn’t wearing gloves. She was dressed in jeans and a turtleneck sweater, and her hair was shorter than the last time I’d seen her, which had been about two months ago. It used to be dark and thick and she’d worn it long when I was a kid, but now it was much thinner, almost entirely gray, and barely covered her ears.

“You’re here,” she said, looking frantically from me to Emme to Paisley in her car seat, which I carried in one hand.

“Hi, Mom. We’re here.”

“I was getting worried. It’s such a long drive, and there’s that one stretch that’s really long without any exits from the highway.” She covered one hand with the other and switched repeatedly. They were pink and chapped from so much handwashing. “I always dread that part of the drive. Sometimes I dread it so much I have to turn around and come home.”

“I know. But we were fine.” I nodded toward Emme. “This is my friend Emme.” And because I knew what her next question was going to be, I added, “She’s not the baby’s mother.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Pearson.” Emme smiled warmly.

“Hello.” My mother gave Emme a quick nod before looking at Paisley again. “And that’s the baby?”

“This is Paisley. Can we come in?”

“Oh! Yes, of course,” she said, almost like she was surprised, as if maybe she hadn’t planned on actually inviting us into the house. She backed away from the door, and I gestured for Emme to go in before me. Once we all stood in the front hall and the door was closed behind us, my mother seemed to recover some of her manners. “Can I take your coat?” she asked Emme.

“Sure.” Emme took off her denim jacket and handed it to my mom. “Thank you. You have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you, dear.” She hung the jacket in the front hall closet. “It’s really too big for only one person, but I’m so used to it. I just don’t think I would like a new house.”

I set the car seat and diaper bag down on the floor and crouched down to unbuckle Paisley, who was starting to wake up. “Hey you,” I said to her. “Want to meet your grandmother?”

“Oh my. Oh my goodness.” My mother came a little closer. “She’s so small.”

I unsnapped Paisley’s coat and carefully took her arms from her sleeves, then I scooped her up and stood so my mom could see her.

“Oh, look at her.” She reached out almost like she might touch Paisley’s foot but changed her mind. “I haven’t been around a baby this young in a long time. She’s so cute.”

“She is.” I felt proud of my daughter. “Would you like to hold her?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I should.” She shook her head as she backed away, repeatedly covering one hand with the other again. “I went to the salon a few days ago, and I’m telling you, everyone in there was sneezing and coughing and blowing their noses. I’m sure I picked up something terribly contagious. I wouldn’t want to give it to her.”

I thought about assuring her it was fine, but decided against it. If she wanted to hold her grandchild, she could. If she didn’t, I wasn’t going to force her. “Okay. Maybe later.”

“Maybe if I put on my gloves,” she began, but I cut her off.

“No, gloves aren’t necessary, Mom. I’m sure your hands are clean, but you don’t have to hold her. I’ll hold her.” I wandered into the living room, where framed school photos of my brother and me still hung on the hunter green walls. “Hey Emme, come look at these.”

Emme followed me into the large, high-ceilinged room, her arms crossed over her chest. She laughed when she saw my senior picture, a big eight-by-ten in a mahogany frame. “Oh my God, I’ve never seen you totally clean-shaven before. Look at your baby face! And your spiky hair!”

I winced. “Yeah, I’m not sure who I was trying to be with that hair.”

“Brad Pitt in Fight Club?” she suggested.

“Probably.”

“Nate was always so vain about his hair.” My mother, who had followed us into the room, continued to stare at Paisley in my arms and fidget. “It used to take him forever to get ready for school.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Emme laughed. “Really?”

“Yes.” My mother nodded and smiled. “It had to be just right or he’d be in a bad mood all day.”

“Okay. That’s enough.” Part of me was glad my mother was doing well enough to keep the mood light, even if she was poking fun at me. Another part was surprised she even remembered any of my moods, bad or otherwise, or what had caused them. She had always seemed so focused on herself. Then again, I’d been a typical surly, sullen teenager in those days. I probably hadn’t noticed that much about what was going on around me either.

“That’s hilarious,” Emme said, catching my eye and grinning delightedly.

“Can I get either of you something to drink?” my mother asked.

“No, thank you.” Emme smiled and shook her head.

“I’ll take a cup of coffee if you’ve got it,” I said. “But don’t go to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble to make some. I’ll be right back.” She gave Paisley another lingering stare before heading into the kitchen.

“Your mom wants to hold Paisley so badly,” Emme whispered. “I can tell.”

“Me too. But I’m not playing her game about the germs. I don’t want to argue with her, and I don’t need to hear all her statistics about how dirty public places are or how easily viruses are spread.”

“Why not let her wear the gloves if it will make her feel better?”

“Because it’s ridiculous. She doesn’t need to wear gloves in the house. I don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior. Her therapist told her she had to stop doing it.”

“I just feel so bad for her. It must be terrible to be so afraid all the time. So afraid that you can’t even hold your own granddaughter. Can’t you let her do it this once?”

“No. Look, I feel bad for her too. And I used to give in to her all the time. When we ran out of milk and she wouldn’t go to the store to get it because the dairy aisle is too far from the store exit, I went and got the milk. When she wanted to attend my high school graduation wearing gloves and a surgical mask because there weren’t any windows in the auditorium so the air had to be full of contaminants, I said okay. When she was too scared to fly to North Carolina to see me graduate from college because she might have a panic attack on the plane, I told her it was fine. But I made a conscious decision a couple years ago to stop doing that. It wasn’t helping her.” I was probably being too hard on Emme, maybe even on my mother, but I’d been dealing with this for a long time, and I couldn’t be in this house without bad memories knocking at my psyche.

Emme put a hand on my arm. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s good that you can be strong for her sake and not give in.”

“I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” I took a deep breath and exhaled. “This house comes with a lot of baggage for me. I don’t always deal with it well.”

She snuck a quick kiss on the lips. “You’re doing great. And maybe your mom eventually won’t be able to resist holding Paisley at some point while we’re here. She’s being so good right now, isn’t she?”

“She is.” I kissed the top of my daughter’s head.

“And if not, there’s always the next time.” She turned back to the wall with all the pictures on it and pointed at one of Adam, the last one taken. “This is your brother?”

“Yes.” As always when I looked at that picture, something in my chest caved. Nothing about the grin on his face or the gleam in his eye or the wayward lock of hair above his forehead indicated he had less than a year to live.

“Adorable.” She glanced over at some of my earlier photos. “You guys looked a lot alike.”

“Yes.”

“And you know what?” She moved down the row of Adam’s pictures, then went over to the fireplace and studied a couple of the baby pictures on the white-painted mantel. “I can totally see the family resemblance in Paisley.”

My mother entered the room carrying a tray with two steaming cups on it as well as a small sugar bowl and a carton of half-and-half. “I brought you some too, dear. In case you wanted a little warm-up.” She smiled at Emme and set the tray on the table in front of the burgundy sofa.

“Thank you. Actually, it smells delicious. I think I will have a cup.” Emme went over to the sofa and sat down. “I was just saying to Nate that Paisley really resembles his side of the family.”

My mother nodded. “I think so too. Nate had that same kind of hair when he was a baby. And her eyes are exactly like his.”

Some of the tension in me began to ease. And then.

“But Nate, really you need to get a complete medical history from the mother’s side of the family. You never know what conditions she could be predisposed to.” My mother’s eyes grew wide. “Cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Sickle Cell Disease, certain kinds of cancer—”

“Mom! Stop it! Paisley does not have any of those things!” I yelled.

“But you can’t be too careful, Nate!” Her hands were working and working and working. “If we had known a little sooner that Adam might have been predisposed—”

“Mom.” Fury was boiling in my veins like molten lava, but I tried to keep my temper in check. “Stop. Talking.”

“I’m only trying to spare you what we went through! What if we’d been aware? I always think about that. What if we could have done something? What if there was an early treatment we missed out on because we didn’t know any better?”

But I was done. Striding through the front hall, I threw the diaper bag over my shoulder and marched up the stairs. “I have to change her.”

I took her into my old room, which looked very different now that it was a guest room—not that my mother had very many guests. The walls were now a butter yellow instead of dark blue, and the old gray carpet had been removed, the oak flooring underneath refurbished. My twin bed was still there, as were my desk and dresser, but the blackout shades were gone, replaced by curtains with a floral pattern.

I stared at the bed, remembering so many nights with my little brother asleep at my feet. He’d always wanted me to tell ghost stories, but then he’d get too scared to go back to his own bed—at least, that’s the reason he gave at the time. But maybe he just wanted to be near me. I’d complained to my mother about it, whining about how it was my room and I didn’t want to share it. Then after he was gone, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have given to have him back at the foot of my bed.

 I lay Paisley on the bed’s new daisy-patterned quilt, then pulled the changing pad from the diaper bag and slipped it beneath her. She didn’t smell messy, but I’d learned that anything was possible during the diaper change.

Fuming silently, I went through the motions scarcely aware of what I was doing. How could my mother have said those things to me? How could she suggest that I might lose Paisley the way we lost Adam? Didn’t she know how that loss haunted me still? Didn’t she realize how it had affected me? Or see the things I had sacrificed in order to protect myself from that kind of suffering? Here she was throwing my fears in my face, reminding me how dangerous it was to love something as vulnerable as a child. My stomach churned.

Once Paisley was dressed again, I picked her up and held her close to my chest, tucking her head beneath my chin. “I’ll never let anything happen to you,” I promised her quietly. “Never.”

But as soon as I uttered the words, I recognized their emptiness. How could I make that promise? What power did I have to protect her? I was no superhero. I was just a guy whose condom had failed. There was no honor or nobility in my journey to fatherhood. I hadn’t even wanted it. What if I deserved to be punished for that? What if losing her was my life sentence?

I kissed the top of her head, letting my lips rest on her soft dark hair. I breathed in her clean baby sent. I squeezed her tighter, so tight she began to squirm and fuss.

I loosened my hold on her a little, but my mind continued to torture me. Staring at the bed where I’d spent so many nights praying and hoping for a miracle, certain that it would be delivered and then broken beyond repair when it wasn’t, I remembered why I had lived my life alone up to this point. It wasn’t only the child you loved who was vulnerable, it was you.

Where Paisley was concerned, I had no choice. I loved her because she was mine. But what about Emme? She was a choice, wasn’t she? She was a wish I had made, a hope I had let break the surface. I’d been blinded by feelings for her, but now I saw my mistake.

What the fuck had I been thinking? Why had I let her in? Why had I given her pieces of me I could never get back? What was going to happen when she got tired of waiting around for me to change my mind about getting married or having a family and left me for someone who wanted the same things she did? It was bound to happen sooner or later. Why was I setting myself up for heartbreak, when I knew better than anyone that wishes don’t come true?

“Hey. You okay?”

I turned to see Emme standing in the doorway. “I don’t know.”

She nodded and entered the room, tucking her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “That was kind of rough.”

“Yeah.”

Emme looked around the room. “Was this yours?”

“Once upon a time. But the walls were dark blue back then.”

She smiled. “Like a bat cave.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Her smile faded as she walked toward me, her eyes were full of concern. She wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her cheek against my arm. “I’m sorry, Nate. I don’t know what to say.”

“This isn’t your fault.” None of this was her fault, yet I kept wanting to apologize to her. Was it because I knew she was going to end up being hurt?

“Your mother is down there breathing into a paper bag.”

“Jesus. Of course she is.”

“What do you want to do?”

Get the fuck out of here. Turn back the clock. Get my life back on track. I took a breath. “Try again, I guess. Give it another hour or so. Is that okay with you?”

She kissed my shoulder. “Of course it is.”

Before we went back downstairs, I went into Adam’s room down the hall. It too had been repainted, from sky-blue to deep maroon. At some point, it had been converted into an office for my father and held a large desk, some bookshelves, and a leather chair in one corner. It smelled faintly of stale cigar smoke. I turned to Emme, waiting for me in the hallway. “Can I ask you to take Paisley downstairs? I need a minute to look for something.”

“Sure.” She reached for Paisley, smiling brightly at her. “I bet you’re hungry, peanut. Want a snack?”

“Good idea,” I told her. “Want to make her a bottle?”

She nodded and took the diaper bag from me too. “No problem. Maybe I can even recruit Grandma to help me.”

After she left, I went over to the closet and opened the door. It held some suits of my father’s zipped up in garment bags, a few dresses of my mother’s from the days when they enjoyed an active social life, and tons of wrapping paper, ribbon, and bows in stacked plastic containers. No wonder my mother’s gifts to me always smelled like mothballs. On the top shelf, I saw the box I was looking for. It was labeled BOYS.

I took it down and brought it over to the desk. A layer of dust covered the top, and I sent motes swirling when I lifted it off. Inside were relics from my childhood—I’d looked through this box many times and knew its contents. Our first pairs of shoes, bronzed, which we’d always thought was so weird but my mother claimed was a tradition in her family. Little velvet bags containing our baby teeth. Hats and gloves that had been knitted for us by relatives we’d never met. Childish drawings in crayon. School pictures. Adam’s stuffed bear. My Batman cape. And there toward the bottom was the item I wanted—his joke book. I took it out and thumbed through it. Its pages were yellowed and it smelled musty, like a basement. Inside the front cover, he’d printed his name in blue ink. Adam Pearson. Beneath that, he’d written a note:

KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU. This book is my personl proprty and the only other person alowd to read it is my brothr Nate Pearson.

Despite the tightness in my chest, I smiled. Not once had I ever wanted to read his stupid joke book. But it meant something to me now that he would have let me. I should have been nicer. I should have laughed more. I should have appreciated being his big brother.

I’d been planning to ask my mother if I could have the book, but holding it in my hands only made the pain in my heart worse. Setting it back in the box, I replaced the top and put it back on the shelf in the closet and shut the door. Fucking feelings. You had to bury them, or they’d suffocate you.

I’d forgotten that.

Downstairs, the scene in the living room surprised me. My mother sat on the couch holding Paisley while Emme, sitting right beside her, held the bottle as Paisley drank. Both of them looked up when I came into the room.

“I hope it’s okay that I’m holding her,” my mother said nervously, her eyes dropping back to her granddaughter’s face. “I scrubbed my hands really well, and I’m not touching the bottle at all. So I don’t think the germs will endanger her.”

“It’s fine.”

I made eye contact with Emme. She smiled at me, her eyes shining, a beautiful, calming presence in this house full of ghosts, and my heart about exploded in my chest. My legs nearly gave out. My breath stopped.

Because I loved her. I loved her. For being here with me, for understanding me, for making me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Except I would end up alone, wouldn’t I? When she was gone, when she’d given up on me, when she’d realized I couldn’t give her everything she wanted and deserved.

You couldn’t control everything in life, maybe not even your feelings, but you could control your actions. I had to walk away, or I had to push her away. The thought of doing either one made me sick to my stomach, but I told myself to be a fucking man and get over it. Harden my heart. Take control.

Make the choice.