The next morning when Emma woke up and wandered out of her bedroom, I was in the kitchen.
“Hey, you’re up,” I said, over the stove. “I’m making you oatmeal,” I said, nodding at the pot. “I figured it would be easy on your stomach. Maybe some bananas?”
She sat at the little table. “Thanks.”
I let my eyes linger on her longer than they should. I liked the way she looked. Rumpled and sleepy like this was the morning after I’d stayed the night. I mean I had stayed the night, but not in the way I wanted to.
I probably never would.
It was funny how much I wished I had these small, normal things. To wake up next to her and make her breakfast. Make plans for the holidays, ask her what she needed from the store on my way home and have our shows that we wouldn’t watch without each other.
I wouldn’t get these experiences. Not with her. It was a hard reality to accept. I’d been trying.
I looked back at the pot so she wouldn’t see the expression on my face. “How do you feel?” I asked.
“Like a human again.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “Not like a human who got bit by a zombie?”
She laughed a little.
“I was thinking we could watch a movie or something,” I said. “If you’re feeling up to it.”
“You don’t have to go home?”
“No. I mean, unless you want some alone time or—” “No. I don’t,” she said quickly.
“Okay.”
She peered over at me. “You’re… you’re not mad at me?”
I looked back down at the stove. “Why would I be mad at you?”
The words Because of What Happened Between Us the Other Day hung there.
“You haven’t really been texting me,” she said.
“You haven’t really been texting me. I just figured you were feeling small after what happened with Amber and you needed your space.”
She didn’t reply.
“I missed you,” I said, talking to her but looking at the oatmeal.
I don’t know why I bothered to say it. She’d made her position on our relationship pretty clear. But for some reason I needed her to know it anyway. Maybe because her truth was hers, and mine was mine and I missed her and deserved to say it out loud.
There was a painfully long beat of silence. “I missed you too.”
I looked up at her, my heart leaping with hope. I waited for her to say more but she didn’t.
I’d realized something over the last week of almost complete radio silence. I knew now that if I didn’t have the kids, I really would have followed her to the ends of the earth. The week apart had solidified that for me. I’d hoped the distance would make it easier to let her go. But it hadn’t. It just made me miss her more. There was something so hopeless about it.
I reached for a bowl to serve her food to avoid the awkward silence. I cut up a half of a banana and sprinkled the oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon and slid it in front of her.
“You’re not eating?” she asked.
I put the empty pot in the sink and ran water into it. “No, I’m not hungry for some reason.”
She poked at the oatmeal. “What did you do this week?” “Nothing. Took care of the kids. Worked.”
“How have they been?”
It seemed weird to me that she’d ask about them. They were the reason she didn’t want to stay. But still, I liked that she cared enough to ask.
“Good,” I said. “They’re adjusting. School starts soon.”
“Have you talked to your mom?”
I pumped the dish soap and started scrubbing. “She’s doing okay. I sent her a care package with some drawings Chelsea did and letters from Alex and Sarah.”
Mom was still a mess, so I kept things light when I saw her. I told her about Mall of America and the trip Sarah was taking with Josie up to her family’s cabin in northern Minnesota.
I didn’t tell her that Chelsea had started crying for her at bedtime or how much Sarah was struggling or how Alex was less of his usual perky self. I didn’t tell her that Emma and I wouldn’t work out because my life had become something so complicated.
I think the hardest part to deal with was Emma admitting she felt this thing between us too and having to come to terms with the fact that she still didn’t want it. This would end. She would go. And both of us would miss each other.
That was the tragedy.
“It’s good you’re sending her things,” Emma said. “Yeah, I—” My stomach gurgled and I stopped.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. I just thought I felt a little nauseous for a second there.” I rolled my shoulders. “I’m good.”
I went back to washing. Then I froze again. I stood there for a beat, turned off the water, and bolted past her to the bathroom.
