“No worries,” I say. “Juice is fine.”

He grabs the bottle from the fridge and pours some into a glass, handing it to me.

“I’ll show you around so you can get a feel for the house, then I’ll introduce you to Bailey.”

The house is two levels. We start on the first level, walking down a long, narrow hall. “If you’re downstairs, this is the guest bathroom,” he says, showing me a small half bath with just a sink and toilet. “And just behind it is the mud room and washing machine in case you need to wash anything. Bailey can be messy and I don’t have much in the way of clean clothes for her at the moment. Everything I have is in storage until I can find a place of my own. I didn’t want to bombard my brother with all of our stuff. I don’t plan to stay too long. He’s not big on kids.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened,” I blurt out without thinking. “With your wife, I mean.”

He turns to look at me, and even though his face still looks friendly, I immediately regret saying it.

brought that up. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s just my mom told me about your conversation with her yesterday, and …” I let my words trail

young enough so she won’t remember her mother and she’ll be able to move on from this. If it were to have happened when she was older, it might’ve been devastating. I’m actually excited about moving forward. My marriage was horrible from day one. I lived in a house I didn’t love, with a woman I didn’t love,

glad. You don’t have to worry about Bailey

desperate. Maybe he’ll assume it’s just because I need the job and not that I long for

here too,” he says. “Should we go meet

“Yes, please.”

we’re walking, he stops abruptly and turns to me. “Oh,

the glass in my hand before it

front of him, trying to wipe the juice away but only making it worse by spreading it around. How many times will I have to apologize to him before he leaves the

the front of his shirt, arms out. He doesn’t look mad like I thought he would. Instead,

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