Page 27 of What Broke First
She chuckled. “Honesty. Look at you.”
“I’m trying,” he said. “To be honest. To be better. To earn my way back, not talk my way in.”
Sarah didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Keep trying.”
They kept going. Through old memories. New jokes. Updates on the kids. Tommy’s latest broccoli protest. Emily’s tiara tyranny.
It was easy. Familiar, but refreshed, like a favorite sweater that still fits, but smells like clean linen instead of old perfume.
Eventually, after an impossibly long stretch of laughter and shared silences, they both got quiet.
“I should let you sleep,” Matt said, his voice soft now. “But this was... really nice.”
“Yeah,” Sarah murmured. “It was.”
They said goodnight with voices dipped in warmth, like neither one of them wanted to hang up first.
When Sarah climbed into bed, the house felt a little less lonely. And on the other side of town, Matt lay on his back, grinning at the ceiling. Neither knew what tomorrow would bring.
But for tonight, their hearts were in the same place.
Chapter 15: Tea and Timing
It started with a phone call. Or maybe it started earlier when Sarah re-read Matt’s texts, set her phone down, and left the room. Emily, with her toddler curiosity and tiny fingers, picked it up.
Matt had just finished his second cup of coffee when the screen lit up. Sarah calling. His stomach flipped. He answered with a wide grin. “Calling me already? You miss my face that much?”
There was a pause. Then a tiny voice.“Hi, Daddy! I called you! What you doing?”
Matt’s grin turned into something soft and overwhelming. “Emily? Sweetheart, is that you?”
“Yup. I push the button and it worked! Mommy’s phone is magic.”
He laughed. “It sure is. I’m just sitting here thinking about my best girl. That’s you, by the way.”
Emily giggled. “I wear my pink dress and my crown, and and... I have tea ready. But not the hot kind. The pretend kind. You want to come play?”
Matt leaned back, heart swelling. “Of course I do. Save me a seat. And make sure Sir Teddy behaves this time, alright?”
Emily giggled again, but then her voice shifted. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby?"
“I miss you being home.”
Matt swallowed hard. “I miss being home, too.”
In the other room, Sarah froze. She had just stepped back into the living room, laundry basket in hand, and heard it all through the speaker. The way Matt’s voice wrapped around their daughter like safety. The shift in Emily’s tone. The ache in her own heart caught her off guard.
She walked around the couch and gently took the phone.“Hey,” she said.
Matt’s voice was light. “Hey. I just received a royal invitation to a very important tea party.
”Emily nodded. “Mommy, Daddy said he wants to play. Can he come now?”
Sarah looked at her daughter, then at the phone, then out the window, as if the answer might be written in the sky.
