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don’t picture turning everything off. You didn’t choose the divorce. You just didn’t fight it. Why?”
    “I think she wanted me to prove nothing had changed between us.” He drank some cocoa and burned his tongue. As he waved a hand in front of his mouth, Beth grinned. “Everything changed except that I loved her. I was her husband. I was supposed to protect her. I know, Beth. Don’t lunge across the table—I’m a cliché and a caveman, but I loved my wife, and when I looked at her, I saw what that man did to her….”
    Beth took his hand again. “This is why you need Dr. Maria.”
    “I’m serious.” He’d been right to hide how much he still cared. If even his sister thought he needed therapy, maybe he did have a problem.
    “Forget what happened then. Do what you have to now. And for pity’s sake, if you still love Cassie, tell her. Fight for her.”
    “She has a baby—a little girl—she’s four.” He took another sip. Boiling liquid sawdust.
    Beth stared at him, slowly comprehending. Tears floated in her eyes. “She took a baby away from you? I don’t believe it. Not Cassie.”
    He shook his head and didn’t bother to hide his own horror. Beth grabbed her stomach.
    “You’re sure she’s the right age?” Beth asked.
    “Cassie told me. Hope is his. She didn’t believe she could stay here and raise the child.”
    “I could kill him.”
    “I should have.”
    “How hard is it to get into a prison?”
    Wind whistled between them, spiked with the laughter of the skaters. They stared at each other, both startled at the intensity of their hatred. But his was partly for himself as well.
    “Hope is her name?” Beth shoved the rest of her food and drink away. “What’s she like?”
    “Sweet. A kid.” She was more than that—trusting, gentle, happy to meet him, never knowing what he’d seen when he’d first seen her.
    “What would any woman do in Cassie’s place?” Beth asked.
    “I don’t give a damn about any woman.” Too hurt for too long, he had no room to be compassionate. “I want my old life, with my wife and my home and my family. By now we’d have had children of our own. Leo wouldn’t be stuck in a hospital bed in a world that never existed. Cassie would be safe and happy and loved.” He raked his hands over his face. “I can’t stand thinking.”
    After a moment, Beth pulled his hands down to the table. “Is Cassie with her dad tonight?”
    “No. I’m supposed to take her in the morning. I’m afraid he won’t recognize her so I wouldn’t let her go alone.”
    “Let her? She stood for that?”
    “Don’t sound all speculative. It doesn’t mean anything. I came to ask if you’d look after Hope while we visit Leo.”
    “Did you tell her you were asking me?”
    “She thought it was a good idea, too.”
    “No mother would want her baby to meet a grandfather in the shape Leo’s in.”
    “The thing is, you can’t—I mean, it’s not Hope’s fault that she’s—”
    Beth looked confused.
    “She doesn’t know the truth about herself.”
    Beth sat back, grabbing the sides of her bench. “I’m no monster. I’d never hurt a child’s feelings.”
    It was so easy for her? “I think I may be one.”
    Again, he heard the crackle of fire, the scraping of skates and childish laughter that seemed unnatural and harsh. “She’s a good kid, and funny. I found myself laughing at her—with her. But I still see him. It’s why I lost Cassie in the first place. Every time I tried to touch her, I saw him, and she thought I didn’t want her.”
    “Didn’t you tell her the truth?”
    He nodded, or he might have shaken his head. He couldn’t tell which. “She never believed me.”
    “Whatever happens now, you have a second chance to salvage something with Cassie, even if it’s only friendship. You just have to be a decent man. She knows how difficult this is for you. She had to face the truth about Hope’s conception, too.”
    “I’m not allowed to equivocate.