Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 202

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Chapter 202

Chapter 202

MATTHEW

Theo was quiet for a moment.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

He thought about it. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t. That’s the thing about words sometimes – they can mean something you didn’t intend, depending on how they’re arranged.”

He looked at the table. “Is everyone going to think you and Cal are together now?”

“Probably some people,” I said. “It might sort itself out when people actually meet him and understand the situation. Or it might take a while. Either way, it’s not a disaster.”

“Is Cal upset?”

“I don’t think Cal has heard yet,” I said. “And I don’t think he’ll be upset. He’s not really someone who gets upset about what people think.”

Theo nodded slowly. He was still looking at the table. Then: “Dad, is it bad that I want to spend time with him?”

The question was quiet enough that I almost missed the weight in it.

“No,” I said. “It’s not bad at all.”

“Because I know he’s not staying,” Theo said, still in the quiet voice. “He’ll be better and then he’ll leave. I know that.” He looked up. “But while he’s here he lets me learn things. And he listens to the whole dinosaur story without stopping me in the middle.” He paused. “And I know it’s not the same as having Mum. I’m not confused about that.

“I know you’re not,” I said.

“I just “He stopped. Started again. “When I’m helping with the bandages I’m doing something she would have taught me. And it feels like she’s a little bit there.” He looked at his hands, the ones I had told him were hers. “Does that make sense?”

I held the centre of my chest together by an act of will.

“Yes,” I said. “That makes complete sense.”

He nodded, satisfied that the thing had been understood. Then, because he was Theo and the emotional register of a conversation had a limited hold on him before the practical one reasserted itself: “Should I tell my friends that Cal isn’t your partner?”

“It might be a good idea,” I said. “Just to clear things up.

He considered this. “What should I say he is?”

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“Someone who needed help recovering from an injury and is staying here while he gets better,” I said. “A professional connection.”

Theo tried this out, moving his lips slightly the way he did when he was memorising a phrase. ” Professional connection,” he repeated.

“And you can say he’s teaching you first aid if you want,” I said. “That part’s accurate and it gives people a reason for you to spend time together that isn’t confusing.”

He nodded, filing this away. “Okay.” He picked up his water glass and drank most of what was left. “Can I go back upstairs now?”

“Yes,” I said. “But Theo

give him a little quiet time tonight. He’s still healing. He needs rest.”

“I know,” Theo said, standing. “I don’t talk the whole time. Sometimes I just sit there.”

He said this with the complete seriousness of someone reporting a responsible practice, and then he took his glass to the sink and went back upstairs.

I sat at the kitchen table alone.

From the hallway came the sound of small feet on the stairs, and then the creak of the second step from the top, and then quiet.

I thought about what he’d said. About her being a little bit there when his hands were doing the things her hands would have known how to do. About learning medicine the way she would have taught him.

I thought about a woman who had known her way around injuries and had worked in a hospital and had specific abilities that she had passed down in the blood to the small boy who was currently going back upstairs to sit in quiet proximity to a recovering man and not talk the whole time.

I sat there for a while.

Then I got up, made myself a cup of tea I didn’t particularly want, and started thinking about how to explain the full situation to Mrs. Patterson in a way that clarified things without involving security protocols or Voss or attempted kidnappings.

It was, in the scope of current problems, a manageable one.

I was almost glad to have it.

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Chapter 203