I looked through the glass beside the front door.
Sophie was still asleep on the couch.
One small hand rested on Hopper’s worn ear.
“I haven’t decided,” I said.
Claire nodded once.
“Then tell me what you’re actually deciding.”
I leaned against the porch railing.
The answer should have been simple.
Denver or Virginia.
Career or family.
Fiancée or niece.
But real choices were rarely that clean.
“I’ve worked nine years for that partnership,” I said.
“I know.”
“My review is in March.”
“I know.”
“If I stay here for months, I’m probably done.”
Claire said nothing.
“Our wedding is in June.”
“I know that too.”
“My whole life is in Denver.”
She looked past me toward the living room.
“Not your whole life.”
That landed harder than I expected.
I looked away.
Claire stepped closer.
“I’m not trying to compete with a six-year-old.”
“It feels like you are.”
Her face tightened.
“That’s exactly what I was afraid you’d say.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“The truth.”
“I don’t know the truth.”
“I think you do.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“You flew two thousand miles to tell me what I think?”
“No. I flew two thousand miles because the man I’m supposed to marry keeps saying ‘I don’t know’ every time I ask whether our future still exists.”
I had no answer.
She lowered her voice.
“Daniel, I love Sophie.”
“I know.”
“I loved Evan too.”
“I know.”
“But loving her does not automatically make me ready to become a parent.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You are if you stay here and expect our marriage to continue exactly as planned.”
That was the sentence I had been avoiding.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was reasonable.
Claire had been clear from the first year we dated.
She did not want children.
Neither did I.
She wasn’t changing the rules.
Life had.
“I could bring Sophie to Denver,” I said.
Claire looked at me.
“Could you?”
“Legally? Eventually, probably.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I knew.
Sophie’s school was here.
Her friends were here.
Her parents’ house was here.
Every familiar thing she had left was here.
Moving her halfway across the country because it made my life easier might still have been possible.
That didn’t make it right.
Claire rubbed her hands together against the cold.
“If you ask me whether I can stay here for a few weeks and help you through this, yes.”
I looked at her.
“If you ask whether I can marry you in June and become Sophie’s parent because Evan died, I can’t promise that.”
My chest tightened.
“Can’t or won’t?”