Anna POV
I had rehearsed this conversation for three days. I had rehearsed it the way I rehearsed everything that mattered — in the space between actions, in the thirty seconds I stood at the bathroom sink before the tap came on, in the long quiet of the drive back from the grocery store with Maris watching through the rearview mirror. I ran it in the back of my mind while I folded laundry and while I sat across from Natalie at lunch listening to her talk about nursery colors and while I smiled at exactly the right moments in conversations I was barely present for.
Every word had a position. Every pause was placed. I knew what I needed him to feel, and I had built the argument around that feeling the way Alexander had taught me — not directly, not obviously, but leading him there so grad
