The three days before the surgery were the most domestic of their marriage.
Claire cooked. Not because anyone asked her to and not because she was the kind of woman who cooked when things were hard, but because the hospital cafeteria food was genuinely terrible and Marcus had made one specific face at a bowl of soup on the second day that she could not ignore.
She brought meals. Nathaniel carried them. They sat in the hospital room, the three of them, eating from containers while Marcus complained about everything except the food, which he ate with the wordless efficiency of a man who had not realized how hungry he was.
James ran Cole Industries in Nathaniel's absence with the controlled competence of someone who had been ready for this for years and was only slightly annoyed that it ha
