FOUND IN THE RAIN

EPISODE 3

Morning was gray. Lily stroked Emma's cheek. Then light came. Very slowly, Emma realized where she was and what had happened. "Mommy. There's a man outside." Emma sat up; her bare feet were cold as they hit the floor. She crossed to the window. The black car stood across the street. Engine off, just sitting there. An envelope lay under the door. The check inside made her drop down onto the couch without thinking. It covered the sculpture and six months' rent. His card was paper-clipped behind it. No note, no nothing. Just the card. And the implication. She folded it in half and stuck it in a drawer. She never cashed it.

Three days passed. The car showed up every morning before Emma took Lily to school. Emma told herself she hated it. She said it was intrusive and presumptuous. She said it was a man who believed money could solve anything. On the fourth day, the car didn't show up. She stayed at the window longer than she should. The street looked wrong without it. She made coffee but didn't drink it. She was twenty minutes late dropping Lily off. At pickup in the afternoon, Lily sprinted past her. "Daddy!" Emma whipped her head around.

Alex was there, on the sidewalk, crouched down, arms out. Lily leaped into them. And stopped. Emma caught her breath. The sidewalk wobbled. He raised his head over Lily's shoulder. Saw Emma right away. "I was picking up my goddaughter. Different school. Didn't expect —" he shifted Lily "-she called me Daddy." "She's five," Emma said. "She saw a face she knew." His face didn't change. "I know." Pause. "Let me take you two out to dinner. Just dinner. Somewhere Lily would like." Lily turned to Emma, her eyes wide. "Can we, Mommy? Can we?" Emma looked at her daughter, then at him. "Okay. Fine." She picked up her bag. "Dinner." He found a diner where you could see a playground, out the back window. One slide and one set of swings. She spotted the swings before they sat down. Her face lit up. "You did research," Emma said. "Asked my assistant for family restaurants. Never made that request before," he said, shrugging the shoulder beneath Lily. Emma opened her menu and smiled. Burgers came, and after eating half of hers, Lily announced she was done, then ran out back to the play area. She waved from the window every two minutes. He waved every single time, though he watched Emma.

Between the waves, he said he spent summers at a lake house with cousins he didn't know, a father who took up all the space and left none for anyone else, a mother who got sick when he was sixteen and took two years to get worse. "I swore I would be different," he said. He looked at the ketchup bottle. "I thought I would build something and be there for it. For people." He sighed again. "Instead, I built a company that took everything. My time, my friends, my life." Emma twisted the napkin under the table until she forced herself to stop. "I should have told you," she said. "When I knew. I should have found a way." "You were scared," he said. There was no edge of accusation in his tone. “Of this," she said. "Of wanting something I couldn't afford to want."

The hand on the table slid across the wood, stopping just short of hers. "I want to know her," he said. "Every birthday. Every skinned knee. Every school play where she forgets what she is supposed to say." He lifted his eyes back to Emma's face. "And I want to know you," he said. "The woman who made a whole person and raised her by herself. The woman who walks through the rain to a party she doesn't belong at." His voice was soft. "I didn't know I was looking for anything," he said. "Hadn't thought about it in years. Then she comes running in, and I looked up, and there you are.” Lily appeared in the window. She waved. He waved back. His eyes remained on Emma's face. For the first time in five years, Emma allowed herself to sit still with her feelings.