Functional. Respectful. Separate lives. Duty, not love.
The thought arrived before I could stop it but functional and respectful still meant the same bed, the same house, children with his face. It sat in my chest and burned there quietly all the way through the next exercise.
On the fifth day Talia slipped on a wet patch in the coffee room during the break and came down hard on one ankle with a sound that made three people flinch.
I crossed the room before she finished swearing.
"Don't try to stand," I said. "Let me look."
It wasn't broken, the angle was wrong for that, but it was swelling already and she was white around the mouth. I got her upright with her arm across my shoulders and flagged a cab from the curb.
One of Stellan's colleagues at the clinic confirmed it: soft tissue,
