I tried to feel my sister out indirectly, asking whether the baby Vivian was carrying was really his. She shot me a look.
"If it wasn't his, you think he'd be fussing over it like that? He'd lose his mind."
Right. If it wasn't his, he'd never have stomached it.
A bitter laugh escaped me, and a blurred memory suddenly came into focus.
Not long after the wedding, Nathaniel had gone away on a business trip for a month.
When he came back, I'd missed him so badly I couldn't keep my hands off him—kept pulling him toward the bedroom, night after night. He turned me down every time.
Back then I'd wondered if I'd done something wrong, if I'd upset him somehow.
Now I understood. It wasn't that he didn't want to. He couldn't.
He'd had a vasectomy. He was still recovering and couldn't sleep with me.
He'd let them cut him open rather than risk me ever carrying his child.
For Vivian Bennett, there was truly nothing he wouldn't do.
The next morning, I ran into Nathaniel again.
He was blocking my front door, waiting just to see me.
Stubble, bloodshot eyes, dried blood at the hem of his shirt. He looked wrecked.
"I know you've been reborn too." No preamble. "I need to ask you for one thing. For everything we were to each other in our last life."
I turned to leave. He stepped into my path.
He clearly wasn't going anywhere until he'd had this out.
"Quit fighting me on this. I'm begging you for one thing—one thing—and after that we're done. I won't bother you again. You go your way, I go mine, and we never cross paths."
"Cut the crap. What is it?" I'd been trying to figure out how to shake Nathaniel loose, and here he was, coming to me first.
"Have a child for me."
