“Thank you, dear.”
I leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Is it weird that I want to call you Daniel now? It must sound so strange to hear the name.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t. It’s the name that’s always been in my heart.”
Chapter 20
The next morning, I sat up in bed and stretched my arms. Ethan was gone, yes, leaving a vacant spot in my heart, but I tried not to think about it. I put a bowl of instant oatmeal in the microwave and watched out the window as a ferry streamed into the bay. Ethan and I used to love to sit and watch the ferries come in and out. We had pet names for them. Edgar. Duncan. Maude. I smiled, recalling the day he’d named one Horace.
The phone rang from the kitchen, and I ran to pick it up. “Hello?”
“Claire, it’s Eva.”
“Hi,” I said. “It’s good to hear from you again.” I couldn’t wait to tell her about Warren.
“I was wondering if you might be able to stop by today,” she said. “There’s something that occurred to me and…well, we can talk when you get here. Are you free?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of my afternoon plans with Warren. We could stop by Eva’s place first. I could reunite two old friends. “Would noon be all right?”
“Fine,” she said.
“Oh, and Eva, I’ll be bringing along a friend. Someone I’d like you to meet.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “The more the merrier.”
I finished my oatmeal, then pulled my hair into a ponytail. Without thinking about what I was doing, I lifted a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from my dresser, and stood in front of the floor-length mirror in my bedroom. My legs were not what they were. Once toned and strong, they looked soft and doughy. I wasn’t a runner anymore. Could I ever be again?
I turned to the closet, which looked bare without Ethan’s clothes inside. I looked away, and a flash of blue caught my attention on the lower shoe rack. My running shoes. They sat there unassumingly, no longer taunting me the way they had in previous months. Now they only waited patiently, quietly. I walked to them and picked them up, sitting on the bed as I slowly sank my feet into their soft soles. I liked the way they felt, snug and sure. I laced them up, tying the bow into a double knot. My heart beat faster as I took a sip of water and tucked my cell phone and keys into my pocket, rituals I had done hundreds of times before going on jogs in the past.
Gene didn’t say anything as I stepped off the elevator and walked through the lobby. It was a moment unworthy of conversation. Besides, my mind was churning and my heart heavy. It had been a year since I’d last set out for a jog. A life-changing year. He simply held the door open for me as I walked out onto the street, nodding as I crossed the threshold. I’d run many races over the years. But this one, even if it only turned out to be three blocks, felt like the race of my life. And it was.
At first I walked. One foot in front of the other. Once strong and solid, my legs felt like popsicle sticks under me. I shook my head. No, I can’t do this. A gap in the sidewalk sent my heart racing. I remembered the car jetting toward me. The way I’d tripped. The impact, followed by the snap in my abdomen. One foot in front of the other. I picked up my pace, cautiously. Breathe. The sun shone down on my cheeks, warm and approving. A woman looked up at me from a nearby café and smiled. Breathe. Birds chirped from their perch on the electrical lines overhead. Before I knew it, I was running again, really running.
I zigzagged through the blocks by the apartment, then decided to make the hike up past Café Lavanto. I wouldn’t go in, not after Dominic’s revelation the other night. But I longed to run past it, to imagine Warren playing outside as a boy. Sweaty and out of breath, I reached the top of the hill and doubled over with a side ache. I clutched my side and took several deep breaths, then looked up at the café on the block ahead. The building was partitioned off with orange cones. Men in hardhats holding clipboards buzzed around the entrance, pointing to the structure.