“You slept in the car?”

“The back seat was adequate for several hours.”

“David.”

“Yes?”

“You slept in our car so you could feed a kitten every two hours without waking me?”

“At the time, it seemed efficient.”

I covered my face.

“And then?”

“She started eating better. She could go longer between feedings. That’s when I came up with the bed idea.”

“You switched sides so you could quietly reach the door.”

“Yes.”

“You actually thought this plan would work?”

He paused.

“The concept was sound.”

“The execution?”

“Flawed.”

“Because I noticed.”

“Because you notice everything.”

At least he understood that much.

I picked up the kitten.

She settled into my hands without hesitation.

David watched us carefully.

Then I asked,

“What were you going to name her?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“I thought that should be a joint decision.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“That might be the first joint decision in this entire situation.”

“Yes.”

He looked genuinely embarrassed.

“I know.”

Then he became serious.

“Ellen, I should have told you.”

“Yes.”

“I handled this badly.”

“Yes.”

“I made the decision first and planned to tell you afterward.”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t respectful.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

That mattered.

Because the kitten wasn’t really the problem.

The problem was that David had decided what I would think without allowing me to actually think it.

I looked down at the tiny gray animal in my arms.

Then I asked,

“Why did you want to keep her?”

David was quiet.

“She was alone.”

“That’s not the whole answer.”

He thought for a moment.

“When I found her under the steps, she looked at me.”

“And?”

“She didn’t run.”

His voice changed slightly.

“She was cold. Alone. She had every reason not to trust me.”

He looked down at his hands.

“But she looked at me, and she didn’t run.”

Then he said,

“I didn’t know what else to do except stay.”

That sentence changed something in me.

Because it wasn’t really about a kitten anymore.

It was about David.

This stubborn, overly logical man who had slept in a car and set alarms every two hours because a tiny animal had looked at him from beneath our steps.

“What name were you thinking about?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“Scout.”

“Why?”

“Because she found me.”

He smiled faintly.

“She was out there alone, trying to find her way. Then she found me.”

I looked at the kitten.

“Scout.”

She blinked.

“It fits.”

David looked at me quickly.

“So…?”

“So what?”

“We’re keeping her?”

I smiled.

“Yes.”

His shoulders relaxed.

“You’re not going to explain why it’s impractical?”

“Oh, I’ll explain that tomorrow.”

“That seems fair.”

Then he apologized again.

This time, I stopped him.

“I understand why you did it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I do.”

“You found something small and alone, and you decided to stay.”

I looked at him.

“Then you tried to protect that decision.”

“Badly.”

“Very badly.”

He smiled.

“But you should have trusted me.”

“I know.”

“I’m not the person who says no to helpless kittens under back steps.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

That hurt more than I expected.

David seemed to realize it.

“I think I confused organized with rigid,” he said.

I stayed quiet.

“You plan everything. You think ahead. Somewhere along the way, I started thinking that meant you wouldn’t accept something unexpected.”

He shook his head.

“But that isn’t who you are.”

“No.”

“Planning ahead means you know how to handle things when the plan changes.”

“Yes.”

“I forgot that.”

We sat quietly.

Scout had fallen asleep in my hands.

Then David admitted something else.

He had wanted to handle the kitten himself.

Not because he didn’t trust me.

Not entirely.

But because he wanted to prove he could take care of something complicated and vulnerable without needing help.

“It sounds stupid when I say it aloud,” he said.

“No.”

“It was still wrong not to tell you.”

“Yes.”

“But wanting to do something yourself isn’t always wrong.”

He nodded.

“I got her through the worst part.”

“You did.”

That afternoon, he told me, Scout had batted at a piece of string for the first time.

He had sat on the garage floor for forty minutes watching her.

“I kept thinking you should see it,” he admitted.

“And every time I thought that, I told myself I’d tell you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow does that.”

“Yes.”

“It keeps moving.”

He looked at me.

“I’m glad it’s tonight.”

“So am I.”

We moved Scout into the kitchen.

Not the garage.

David brought in her blankets, bottle, formula, and an extremely detailed notepad.

“She’ll need feeding around four,” he said.

“I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You’ve been doing it alone for four nights.”

He hesitated.

Then nodded.

“Thank you.”

That night, we returned to our original sides of the bed.

Mine on the left.

His on the right.

Everything immediately felt correct again.

The bathroom was the proper distance away.

The hallway light looked normal.

The room had returned to the geometry my body remembered.

David settled beneath the blankets.

“It’s good to be back.”

“You hated my side.”

“Yes.”

“You gave up your side for easier access to the door.”

“It seemed logical.”

“Everything seems logical to you.”

“That is occasionally a problem.”

“Especially when your logic forgets to include telling your wife things.”

He laughed softly.

“I’m adding that to the system.”

“Good.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then David said,