“He what?” Daisy asks.

As I tell Daisy the full account of what happened, I watch William waddle off toward Daisy’s children, three-year-old Grace and one-year-old Gavin.

They don’t get to see one another as often as I’d like. William’s an only child, and due to my physical limitations, he’s unlikely to ever have siblings.

I was hoping Grace and Gavin could play that role in William’s life, but both Daisy and I have been too busy to see much of each other in person, even though we text and talk on the phone all the time.

Daisy’s been busy taking care of her two children and jet-setting all over the world, tagging along on her husband’s business trips. She tells me she’s just trying to use her time well because she’s going back to work once the kids are in school, but how can she go back to work after tasting this sweet, sweet life?

Luckily, though, she’s in town today, just when I need her the most.

Daisy’s stylish Persian rug feels like clouds under my legs. We’re seated along the edges while the kids play with some colorful stuffed animals in the center of the big rug.

“If you only needed William out of the way so you could clean the house, why didn’t you just tell Adam to watch him in one room?” Daisy asks, frowning as she adjusts the position of her folded legs.

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “It seems obvious now, doesn’t it? But Adam just offered to take William out for a short ride; it didn’t seem like a horrible idea to me at the time, and I said okay. I didn’t, like, run through all the possible disaster scenarios and come up with multiple action plans.”

“Okay.” Daisy nods.

“That’s all you have to say?” I narrow my eyes at Daisy.

“Not really . . . I don’t know. It’s just . . .” Daisy dumps her hesitation and says, in one breath, “When you said that Adam had almost killed William, I was thinking of something more sinister.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . .” Daisy studies my facial expression with concern. “I don’t know if you want to hear what I think.”

“I do!” I say. “You have to finish your thought. You can’t say something like that and just stop.”

“Okay.” Daisy draws a deep breath. “I just think that maybe it’s possible that you may have overreacted, a little bit.”

“Really? You’re telling me I overreacted?” I stare at her. “You’ve fired so many babysitters for the smallest mistakes. You made that one au pair fly back to Germany.”

“Hey, she didn’t leave because of me. She just realized that maybe being an au pair wasn’t the best job for her if she wanted to party every night,” Daisy says. “Anyway, babysitters and au pairs are different. We’re talking about—” she lowers her voice “—William’s dad here. Does William know, by the way?”

“That Adam got him into an accident?” I stare at her.

“No,” she says, laughing. “Does William know Adam’s his dad?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I’ve been teaching William to just call him Adam. It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to think too much about these things.”

Daisy nods.

“So, you really think I overreacted?” I ask.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I’m not eighteen anymore, Daisy,” I say.

“No,” Daisy agrees, “and you’re a lot more mature now. Less impulsive.”

“I know.” I grin proudly.

“Except when it comes to William,” she says.

I tilt my head and give her a questioning look.

“I’m not targeting you specifically,” Daisy says. “I think all parents get a little crazy about their kids. We get paranoid and super protective, which is good in some ways because the kids are safe, at least. But it can also be a bad thing.”

“So, you think it was a bad thing that I told Adam to leave and never come back?” I ask.

“Remember how worried you were about William not having a dad as he grows up?”

“Yeah, but that was while I was pregnant. Now, I think I can handle it on my own. After having Adam try to ‘help’ me—” I make air quotes with my fingers “—I feel like it’s easier to do everything myself. It’s really hard, having to depend on someone else for something important.”

“Well, that’s what co-parenting is.” Daisy smiles. “You kind of have to trust each other for it to work.”

Trust. There’s that word again.

“What if I don’t trust him?” I ask.

“That’s what I’m getting at,” Daisy says. “Based on what you’ve told me about him so far, it doesn’t sound like he’s done anything bad intentionally. From where I’m standing—and I may be wrong because I’ve never met the guy, after all—he seems trustworthy enough.”

“Really? After what just happened?” I ask.

“Well, trust isn’t something that’s either there or not there,” Daisy says. “For example, I trust Grace to at least try going to the potty on her own, but I know she can’t always manage to do that.

“With Adam, you can trust him to do his best, but at the same time acknowledge that he can’t always hit a home run.”

“Excuse me,” I say, “but he almost got William seriously hurt. That wasn’t just ‘not hitting a home run.’ That was . . . I don’t know. I really don’t know baseball enough to make a good comparison. Point is, he failed.”

“At one task,” Daisy says. “He failed at one task. You can give him an easier one and progressively give him bigger responsibilities.”

“You seem pretty confident you’re right.”

“I’ve always had to do this parenting stuff with someone else. And you know how busy Caine is. He doesn’t get much practice time taking care of the kids. I’ve been trying to teach him some stuff, too, and it hasn’t been easy.”

I nod. She makes a good point. Maybe I really was about to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

“It’ll be fun if you start training Adam. We’ll be able to share tips,” Daisy says, raising an eyebrow.

“Ha. So that’s the real reason why you’re pushing for me to take Adam back.”

Daisy grins and stares at me with a knowing look on her face.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I didn’t say anything about taking him back,” Daisy says. “All I said was, maybe he’s not the horrible dad you seem to think he is.”

“Whatever,” I say, trying to stay cool despite the heat creeping across my face. “I just misunderstood.”

“You really like him, don’t you?” Daisy asks.

“I guess,” I admit finally.

“Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course,” I say. “Don’t worry about me. I won’t drink an entire keg at a frat party like I did once when my ex cheated on me.”

“David,” Daisy says, venom in her voice.

“Yeah.”

“He was the one who told you he was going to break up with you anyway once he was ready for something serious, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was infertile, so I was unworthy of being taken seriously, I guess.”

“Good riddance. He was an asshole,” Daisy laughs when she sees my eyes widen with shock. She doesn’t usually curse.

We both pause to check on the kids. They don’t seem to have heard anything. None of them have tried to repeat what Daisy has just said.

“Yeah, don’t worry about me,” I say. “I’m older and a lot more mellow now. I’m probably just going to go home and eat some ice cream while watching a sad movie.”

* * *

By the time my car turns onto my street, I actually feel a lot better about everything.

Previously, I felt like a failure as a mom. I mean, I let Adam take William outside the house without my supervision? What was wrong with me? What if Sawyer hadn’t shown up when he did? Would something more serious have happened?

But Daisy’s always been great at putting things into perspective for me. She’s been a mom a little longer than me. Also, since none of her kids were born out of wedlock, she gets plenty of support from her husband.

With a lot of room in her life for her kids to fill, she has the time to approach parenting a little more mindfully than I do.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s dumb and even evil for me to stop Adam from ever seeing William again. I don’t want William to hate me when he finds out about this as an angsty teenager.

And to be honest, despite my bravado in front of Adam yesterday, I don’t really want him to sue me either.

And, speaking of the devil . . .

I squint my eyes at a dark figure standing outside my house. He’s got a tall, imposing figure, and he’s leaning back against a black sedan.

As I turn the car onto my driveway, the headlight hits the dark figure.

Just as I thought.

It’s Adam.

Why is he here? It was only yesterday that I specifically told him to leave me and William alone.

I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

I glance nervously at William, who’s asleep in his car seat. I hope we won’t wake him up—or worse, scar him for life with a vicious argument.

I turn off the ignition and step out of the car.

“Hey,” says the figure in the dark. It’s Adam’s voice. I’d recognize it anywhere. No other voice in the world makes my stomach flutter like his does.

“Hey,” I respond, trying to sound as breezy and casual as I can.