start date can still move.”
I paused.
“You can delay it?”
“I can ask.”
“Then ask, Ben, please.”
For the first time since Oregon entered our marriage, Ben wasn’t presenting me with a finished plan.
“You can delay it?”
He was waiting for my part in it.
***
When we got home, I listened from the kitchen while Ben called Oregon and admitted he’d committed too quickly.
“I need to move the start date,” he said. “My daughter needs to finish the school year, and my wife has a business she can’t abandon on six weeks’ notice.”
I looked toward the doorway.
He was waiting for my part in it.
That was new.
My business had finally made it into his sentence.
When he hung up, I asked, “Well?”
“They need to discuss it.”
“And if they say no?”
Ben looked at me.
“Then I decide whether the job is worth
