Page 56 of Keeping the Score

“No.” I smile. “In general.”

He slants me a look and moves his hands on the steering wheel. “That’s a pretty deep question.”

“Yeah. Tell me.”

He’s silent for a bit, then says, “Needles.”

“Needles? Like medical needles?”

“Yeah. I’ve always hated getting needles. Getting blood drawn.”

I smile slowly. “What happens?”

“I pass out.”

“Shut up.”

His lips quirk but he stares straight out the windshield. “No lie.”

“I hate to tell you this, but Tilly is due for her four-month vaccinations.”

“Oh, I can handle it when it’s someone else.”

“Okay, good.” I study his shadowy profile. His nose is perfect, amazing for a hockey player and even more amazing for a goalie. But he does wear a big mask on the ice. I didn’t mean that kind of fear when I asked.

“Actually,” he says quietly, “my biggest fear is that I can’t be a good father.”

Oh. I roll my lips in. I think he’s doing great at this parenting so far. “I’m sure every father is afraid of that.”

“Yeah, probably. How about you? What’s your biggest fear?”

This I already know. “I guess it’s that I’m afraid there’s something wrong with me, and that’s what led to my divorce.”

His head whips around, then jerks back to watch the road. “That’s bullshit.”

I shrug. “You can say that, but you don’t know that. I blame Trevor for cheating on me, absolutely, but was there something wrong with me that led to him doing that?”

“There’s never an excuse for cheating.”

My mouth softens. “Really? You believe that?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve never cheated on a woman?”

“I haven’t exactly had a lot of relationships. So no. But I wouldn’t. If I was that unhappy in a relationship, I’d tell her.”

“Sometimes those things are hard to talk about.”

“True.” He considers that. “But you have to.”

I like hearing that from him.

“Anyway, the divorce wasn’t your fault,” he says.

“Maybe… I worked too much.” I say it slowly, because I’ve never actually said this fear out loud. Not even to Elodie. “I worked a lot.”

“Why?”

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