Page 5

“And Lucas?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And how long have you been married?”

“One year. Thirteen months, technically, if you count from the ceremony, but the paperwork didn’t clear until–”

“I count from the ceremony. God counts from the ceremony. The government’s slow – that’s the government’s problem.” She folds her hands on the desk. “Thirteen months. You know what thirteen months is, in grandmother years?”

Oh no.

“Mama Ortiz–”

“It’s forever. A baby takes nine months, Preston. You’ve had time for one and a half. I’ve waited. I’ve been patient. I’ve brought the Tupperware. I haven’t pushed.”

“You asked in September.”

“September was a question. This is a statement.” She leans forward an inch, and the inch is enough. “When am I getting grandchildren?”

I deploy the York charm offensive – the smile that has neutralised board meetings, donor galas, and the time I accidentally insulted the Croatian ambassador’s wife’s hat.

“Rosa, you know Luke and I both adore you, and we absolutely intend to have that conversation at some–”

“Some point.” She says it the way a coroner says cause of death. “Which point, mijo? Give me a date. Give me a fiscal quarter. I’m not young. I got plans. I got yarn.”

“Yarn?”

“For the blankets. I already started two. Green and yellow. Gender neutral – I’m progressive. But I need a timeline.”

“I think timelines for family planning are really a private–”

“Private.” She picks the pen back up. Click. “Lucas says private. You say private. You know what’s not private? My knees, Preston. My knees are sixty-one years old, and they’re making noises that concern my doctor. I wanna get down on the floor and play with my grandchildren before these knees file for disability. Is that unreasonable?”

“It’s not unreasonable, it’s–”

“It’s not unreasonable. Good. We agree.” She writes on a sticky note, peels it off, places it on the counter between us. “That’s the name of a very good fertility specialist. Dr. Rosenthal. Expensive, but the best. He owes me a favour. I saved his brother’s life in this ER with a ballpoint pen and a prayer.”

“You saved a man’s life with a ballpoint pen?”

“Emergency tracheotomy. 1998. Before the Cowboy’s time – O’Connell would’ve stepped in without blinking, snack in his free hand. This attending though, he froze, so I took the pen off the crash cart and cut the airway myself. Someone had to.” She says this the way other people say I picked up milk on the way home. “Your brother and the Cowboy did their version on that plane. The chest, the fancy pen. Everybody clapped.” She turns a page. “Where do you think they got the idea? Mine was a Bic.”

She taps the note. “Take the name. Put it in your pocket. And tell my son his mother is patient.” She picks up her chart. “But not young.”

The pen doesn’t click. The audience is over. I have been briefed, dismissed, and handed a referral in under four minutes.

I take the sticky note and put it in my pocket. “The pernil’s excellent, by the way,” I say, because I’ve lost the skirmish but I will maintain diplomatic relations.

“It’s not pernil,” she says, without looking up. “It’s chicken. Your palate needs work, mijo. Eat more.”

I leave. The Tupperware is warm against my ribs.

The rest of the shift moves in uneven rhythms of crisis and calm. I eat the chicken – it is chicken; Rosa is never wrong about protein – and I think about the sticky note in my pocket and the two blankets apparently already on the needles.

Grandchildren. The word sits in my chest the way a stone sits in a shoe – not agonising, but impossible to ignore once you’ve noticed it. Not because I don’t want them. I do. In the way you want things you haven’t figured out the mechanics of yet. Luke and I have talked about it the way we talk about everything important: briefly, late at night, in the dark, and then one of us makes a joke and the conversation slides back under the surface. We both want it. We are both terrified in different directions, and rather than name those reasons like functioning adults, we have been playing the longest game of emotional chicken in the history of marriage.

My phone buzzes at 17:42. Dad.

Alistair York does not call during working hours unless he needs something, wants something, or has done something. These categories overlap more often than not.