But that wasn't the worst of it.
Nope, the worst part was knowing that this room was the clinical equivalent of an hourly motel. But I had to know whether I was the root of our issues.
I love my wife. I love my wife. I love my wife. Now fill the fucking cup.
Ididn't know whereto go after leaving the urologist's office, but I knew I couldn't go home yet. I wasn't ready to chat with Tiel about her day or argue with Riley over business or sports, not when I was still busy hating my body's weaknesses and trying to forget about jerking off in the duck room. I needed to be alone with my suspected inadequacy.
Instead of returning to the comforts of the firehouse, I found myself at Wellesley, my childhood home. With Andy at the helm, the property was undergoing extensive renovations after decades of little more than basic upkeep. Add to that the twisted, tangled vines of my father's deception, and excavating the passages where he secreted away all memories of my mother and as much of us as he could force into fire-safe lockers, and this project was looking at another year before completion.
Wellesley used to serve as a monument to everything wrong in my life, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't still stir up spikes of anger and anxiety. But now, surrounded by the light of construction lamps and scaffolding, that old, awful history functioned not as dead weight but as a breathless reminder that I'd—we'd—survived.
I walked through each room, studying the restoration work and lingering over memories. The closet that Riley used as his personal canvas was painted over, and no sign of impressionist Rivera, Wyeth, or O'Keefe remained. The constellation map that Erin drew on her bedroom ceiling was gone, and the tricky quarter-circle window she used to sneak out was replaced. The hand-carved newel post at the top of the staircase—the one Angus smashed with a baseball bat after one especially bad day—was repaired.
These walls had seen everything, from the loving moments to the tragedies. They knew the atrocities, even the ones we never talked about because how could we? Which words in this language were sufficient in addressing Angus's reign of terror? I'd yet to find them.
Like these walls, the only avenue available was to keep on standing, silently holding it all up. That was the only secret to our survival, and it was what I had to do now. Even if my body wasn't cooperating, even if my sperm was worthless, even if I couldn't give Tiel the babies she deserved, I was going to keep on standing.
We'd survive. We always did.
17
Tiel
June
If I didn't know better, I'd believe Sam was cheating on me. He was being sneaky and strange, and a touch irritable, and he was distracted. But it wasn't another woman. Not with the way he scooped his arm around my torso each morning and dragged me to his chest, squeezing and holding and loving harder than any one person could ever deserve.
But he'd been coming homeverylate every night this week, and couldn't conjure a decent excuse for it. Then he begged off sex, claiming he was tired and coming down with something. He rolled away when my backside wiggled up against his morning erection with a mumbled excuse about getting to his jobsite early today. These were lines that I didn't want us crossing again, and not simply because I couldn't tolerate one more day of being treated like a porcelain doll.
All of my insecurities and abandonment triggers were on blast, and when he was more than an hour late for the Walsh Associates gathering at Eastern Standard tonight, I was nearly unhinged.
Everyone was at the Kenmore Square location to celebrate Patrick's assistants, Dylan the Girl and Lissa Wynn, lasting longer than any of his previous assistants in the entire history of the firm.
Everyone except Sam.
He'd sent a few texts earlier in the afternoon suggesting that he was tied up with one of his new projects and would be running late, but failed to respond to any of my recent messages. To make matters worse, his siblings were equally curious about his whereabouts, insisting that he wasn't in the weeds with any of his properties.
My brain was howling at me with every awful explanation and sordid scenario, and getting louder with each passing minute. I was on the verge of tears at all times becausewhat the actual fuck was going on in my marriage this week, but all of those wobbly anxieties had to stay in my back pocket until I could get Sam alone.
That left me forcing a smile on my face and sipping a glass of wine while Shannon, Matt, Andy, Riley, and Tom reminisced about Patrick's penchant for firing assistants.
"He's worse than Miranda Priestly," Riley said, his pilsner glass aloft. "You know, that boss fromThe Devil Wears Prada. But worse, like if Miranda Priestly was also a warlord."
"You knowThe Devil Wears Prada?" Lauren asked.
Riley's eyes crinkled shut as he smiled and shrugged. "Of course. I'm all about theDWP," he said. "Don't forget: I served under the Lord Commander until he firedme."
Patrick shook his head with an exaggerated sigh. "I didn't fire you. I reassigned you to Matt because—"
"Because you don't like when people ask you questions," Riley interrupted. "Or breathe, or eat."
Patrick threw up his hands. "Yeah, fine. If I can hear you chewing or swallowing, I've imagined killing you at least once."
"And these two" —Shannon gestured to Lissa and Dylan— "are wasting away because of it. Remember, Patrick, welikethem. We want tokeepthem. Please don't starve them."
Lissa waved off Shannon's comment. "We're good," she said, laughing. "No starvation here."
"Yeah," Dylan added, "we eat when he's out of the office."
