Chapter 5

　　"You never told me his name."

　　Bianca looked up from the permission slip she was signing. Kemi was standing in her kitchen doorway with a mug in both hands and the specific expression she wore when she had been sitting on a question for longer than was comfortable.

　　"Whose name," Bianca said.

　　"The man from the street corner. Three months ago. You said you bumped into someone after the restaurant and I let it go because you were still raw." Kemi tilted her head. "I'm not letting it go anymore."

　　Bianca put the pen down. "There is nothing to let go of."

　　"You have been to that foundation three times now and every time you come back you look like someone who just ran a race they didn't know they had entered." Kemi sat down across from her without being invited. "That is not nothing."

　　"It's complicated."

　　"Everything with you is complicated. Uncomplicate it."

　　Bianca looked at her sister. Kemi had been there the night of the restaurant, sitting two tables away when Daniel slid the papers across the tablecloth, close enough to see Bianca's face but too far to do anything about it. She had never once in the months since asked Bianca to be okay before she was ready. That patience had a limit though and they both knew it.

　　"His name is Ethan," Bianca said. "Ethan Harlow. He runs the foundation."

　　Kemi's mug stopped halfway to her mouth. "The man from the street corner is the director of the program Zoe just got accepted into."

　　"Yes."

　　"The same man whose sister called you the same night you met him."

　　"Yes."

　　"Bianca." Kemi set the mug down very carefully, the way she set things down when she was choosing her next words. "That is either the best or the worst thing I have ever heard."

　　"I haven't decided yet either."

　　"Do you like him?"

　　"I don't know him."

　　"That is not what I asked."

　　Bianca picked the pen back up and looked at the permission slip without reading it. She thought about the corridor last Thursday. The way he had said her name and she had turned and he was closer than she expected and neither of them moved and the air between them was so loaded she could still feel the weight of it three days later.

　　"He remembered my name," she said finally. "From the street corner. Three months ago, one conversation, and he said it like he had been holding it the whole time." She paused. "Nobody has said my name like that in a very long time."

　　Kemi was quiet for a moment. Then, softly, "Bianca."

　　"Don't."

　　"I'm just saying it."

　　"I know what you're doing and I'm telling you to stop." But something in her chest had already moved and they both knew it.

　　Her phone buzzed on the table between them. She looked at the screen and her whole body went still.

　　Ethan.

　　Not a call. A message. Short, direct, exactly the way he did everything.

　　Zoe left her yellow jacket here after Thursday's session. I have it in my office. Let me know if you want me to drop it somewhere or if you'll be passing by.

　　Simple. Practical. Completely reasonable.

　　She read it three times.

　　"Who is it," Kemi said, reading her face.

　　"Ethan. Zoe left her jacket at the foundation."

　　Kemi leaned forward to look at the screen even though Bianca hadn't shown it to her. "He texted you personally instead of having someone from the program call."

　　"He's the director. He probably handles everything directly."

　　"He has staff, Bianca. Directors do not personally text mothers about forgotten jackets." Kemi sat back with the expression of a woman who has just won an argument she hadn't started yet. "Text him back."

　　"I was going to."

　　"Now. While I'm here."

　　Bianca picked up the phone. She typed: Thank you for letting me know. I can come by tomorrow morning if that works. She read it back. Deleted the last four words. Typed them again. Sent it before she could change her mind.

　　The reply came in less than a minute.

　　Tomorrow works. I'll be in from eight. Come whenever suits you and Zoe.

　　And then, after a two second pause, another message.

　　How is she doing? She seemed quieter than usual at the end of last session.

　　Bianca stared at the screen. He had noticed. In a room full of children and parents and program coordinators, across forty minutes of structured activity, he had noticed that Zoe was quieter than usual at the end.

　　Daniel had never once in ten years noticed when Zoe was quieter than usual.

　　Her throat tightened in a way she was not prepared for.

　　She typed: She's okay. She gets like that sometimes after sessions. Processing, her therapist calls it. A pause. Then she added: Thank you for noticing.

　　His reply: She's easy to notice. She's remarkable, your daughter.

　　Kemi, who had been reading every message over her shoulder without pretending not to, made a sound that was not quite a word.

　　"Stop," Bianca said.

　　"I didn't say anything."

　　"You made a sound."

　　"It was an involuntary sound." Kemi picked up her mug. "The man just called your daughter remarkable in a text message at nine o'clock on a Monday night. I am allowed one involuntary sound."

　　Bianca put the phone face down on the table. Her heart was doing the thing she kept telling it not to do, that specific warm unsteady thing that felt like standing at the edge of something high and looking down and not being afraid of it the way you should be.

　　She was afraid of it. She was just not afraid enough yet.

　　"Don't build this into something," she told Kemi.

　　"I'm not building anything. I'm just sitting here watching you try very hard not to smile at your phone." Kemi stood and carried her mug to the sink. "When is the last time someone made you try not to smile?"

　　Bianca did not answer because the answer was too long ago to say out loud without it meaning something.

　　Kemi kissed the top of her head on the way out of the kitchen. "Go to sleep. You're going to the foundation tomorrow morning."

　　She left before Bianca could respond. Ada would have hung up. Kemi walked out. Same result.

　　Bianca sat alone in her kitchen for a while. Then she picked up her phone and read the messages again, just once, just to make sure she had not imagined the tone of them.

　　She hadn't.

　　She turned the phone face down again and finished signing the permission slip.

　　Tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock. She was going to pick up a yellow jacket and come straight home and that was all it was going to be.

　　She almost believed it.

　　Her phone buzzed one more time. She turned it over.

　　It was not Ethan.

　　It was a number she did not recognise. No name. No greeting. Just a photograph and four words underneath it that made the warmth in her chest disappear completely.

　　The photograph was of Ethan. Standing outside what looked like a courthouse three years ago, his face tight and unreadable, a woman beside him Bianca did not recognise.

　　The four words underneath read: Ask him about Rosalind.