William watched her from the same copse of trees that they had always stood under, where she had first stomped up to him, indignant and a little frightened. He could see her in the grass field to the side of the baseball diamond. Her little girls running around, light brown hair flying, kicking a ball. She stood alone, shadowed against the orange and pink of the setting sun. Her face was a dark profile, shadowed, bent, as she kicked a toe in the dirt, her hands shoved into her jean pockets. She was wearing the same ridiculous green rainboots she had had on when they first met…the ones he hated.

He had watched her like this many times now, not daring to approach her. After the uncomfortable incident where he had run into Jason in the back alley, he had stopped walking Ting Ting in front of her house, and this was the only time he could see her. She wasn’t coming as often and the weather was beginning to turn. He could smell the autumn in the wind. School was just around the corner.

Jason had apparently taken a job closer to home and Will had seen the range rover parked in the driveway more often now. A spike of jealously welled in his chest as he wondered about their relationship. Wondered if the things that were broken had been mended. He imagined Viv’s beautiful hair tangled up, curtaining her body as it twisted together with Jason’s and he screwed his eyes shut, trying to dash the image from his brain. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He took a breath, trying to calm down. He took a last deep breath and opened his eyes, still watching her. She hadn’t moved. 

He thought of her slender dark shadow against the brightness of her window, her beautiful long dark hair spilling over his arm as he held her while their bodies tangled together, hip to hip. He let his hands hang limp, trying very hard to hold himself still.

He hadn’t understood at the time why she had chosen to stay with Jason. He hadn’t understood why she would have chosen loneliness, sadness. He did now as he watched her, watched her girls. His lips tipped into a bitter smile, but he did not begrudge the little small beings shrieking with laughter, running this way and that in front of their mother, the woman that he had loved and was still in love with. She hadn’t chosen Jason, she had chosen her daughters and he remembered it every time he cuddled his own niece and nephew, and felt their squishy warm bodies relax trustfully against him. She belonged to them in a way that she could never belong to him and he had started to accept the truth of that. 

Obligation, family, loyalty – he understood all of that. Tilting his head to the side, he looked one last time at her small dark shadow before tugging a little at Ting Ting’s leash. The terrier obligingly danced in a circle, happily wagging his tail. 

When he came through the door, Yen Mei looked up and smiled at him. 

“Ma is coming for a visit,” she said. “I just got off the phone with her.”

William smiled.

His sister reached out to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Ba is coming too,” she said, her smile widening.

“Hen hao (That’s great),” he replied, and said nothing more.