I dragged a cracker through some fruity jam. “Don’t you think day and night is a bit excessive?”
“You have to build up to it,” she said, fully exasperated. “Have I taught you nothing?”
“Apparently not.” I gave her an indulgent smile. “It’s good, but he’s had his hands full trying to put the groom back together again.”
“I really thought those kids were going to make it.” Her wistful sigh said it all. “I guess that goes to show I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”
“Wedding days aren’t a great barometer. Unless one of them is over-the-top awful—and I’m talking aggressive cake smashing, tanking the vows, getting into fistfights on the dance floor—we’re not going to get a real read on their relationship.”
She arched a brow. “It sounds like you’re rewriting our belief system.”
“Maybe I am.” I gulped my wine before I could blurt out any of the things I’d thought about while dissociating earlier tonight. None of that was fit for sharing, not even with Meri. Not yet. “I just think weddings are the first day of residency when your coat is clean and pressed and you know you’re going to be the best doctor in the world. But real life and real medicine are nothing like that. It’s exhausting and messy and it’s filled with stupid, bureaucratic bullshit created by people who couldn’t tell you what DNA stands for.”
Meri was quiet and we gazed out her floor-to-ceiling windows for a few minutes. The lights of Boston Harbor winked back at us in the darkness. It was cold out there. The wind blowing in off the water sounded like snow and ice. It was different from the wind in northern New Mexico when snow was on its way. It’d been during my first winter here that I realized not everyone listened for snow.
“I take it he’s in the OR this evening,” Meri said. She stuck her feet under my blanket. “Or shepherding the groom around town on his grief tour.”
“He texted me on my way over here. Just finished a hot gallbladder.” I went back for another cracker. “And the groom hasn’t required too much shepherding recently. Not that Henry’s had the time for it. Emmerling has kept him running.”
“I’ve always liked that about her.” She nudged my thigh with her foot. “How about a movie? Or are you heading out since he’s wrapped up the gallbladder?”
Though we never spoke of it, there was something of a custody arrangement in place these days. Meri had me for weekday lunches while Henry had me for weeknights. Weekends were split between lazy mornings in bed with Henry and shopping, pedicures, and drinks with Meri. This worked well, but there were some hazy gray spots. Like right now.
“Movie, for sure,” I said. No need to mention that Henry had another hour or two in post-op. The custody agreement functioned best when we didn’t acknowledge it. “Something we can pick apart. I want to rip open all the plot holes the writers hoped we wouldn’t notice. Bonus points for characters sustaining major, life-threatening injuries and unrealistically getting up to save the day.”
“I believe you’re talking aboutJurassic World.” She flicked on the television and went to her streaming apps. “And I love when we pick apart fictional things. So much less stressful than dissecting our own problems.”
I glanced at her. “We could pick apart your real problems. That would require you to share them with me, but you’ve done that before. You survived.”
“Mmm. Nope. Not tonight.” She gave her signatureWe’re not talking about thisheadshake. “Not when we haveJurassic World.”
Two hours,one torn-to-tatters movie, and another bottle of wine later, Meri bundled me into a cab as small, frostysnowflakes started falling. It’d all been a wonderful distraction from the slow creep of the realization I’d spoken to my father for the first time in my life and he’d proven himself to be a lousy dick.
I’d never imagined him as much more than a lousy dick, but now I couldn’t even allow for the possibility that my parents were good people who’d tangled themselves up in a bad situation. He hadn’t bothered to apologize. He could’ve lied and we both would’ve known it was a lie, but at least there would’ve been some effort. But he’d turned his back on us all over again—and he didn’t bother to care.
Instead of staring at that straight on, I watched the snowflakes land on the cab’s window and immediately dissolve. They just kept coming, one fleck after another. I didn’t look away until the cab jerked to a stop at the bottom of Temple Street.
“Thanks,” I called to the driver as I climbed out.
I knew Henry was on his way from the hospital and that I didn’t want to go home alone, so I lingered on the corner while snow fell in fine, erratic patches. I’d given him the quickest of highlights and I hoped that would be enough.
“What are you doing out here?”
I glanced up from a study of the snow accumulating around my shoes to find Henry crossing the street. He was in trousers and a fleece jacket as if he was immune to this weather. A St. Bernard of a man.
“You said you were coming,” I said. It wasn’t much of an explanation. It was the best I could pull together.
“That didn’t mean you needed to wait outside.” When he reached me, he looped his arm around my waist and led me up the narrow brick sidewalk. “I guess I’m going to have to heat you up and I’m going to have to do it quickly.”
“Is there any other way?”
“Not that I’ve found,” he said, all solemn silliness. “I’ll warn you right now that I’m very hot. It might be uncomfortable for you. You might find yourself yelling, screaming, swearing. Even begging for a reprieve. But you’ll thank me when it’s over.”
I peered up at him, willing him to understand that I didn’t want to talk about my night, I didn’t want to talk about anything. If we could play this game, the one where I was cold and he was hot and the world beyond my bedroom door couldn’t bother us, nothing else would matter. I wouldn’t let it matter. “If that’s how it has to be.”
He spared me a glance as he reached into my bag to retrieve my keys. “It has to be that way.” I ducked under his arm as he held the door open for me. “It may seem extreme, but it might be safer if I tie you down.”
I started up the stairs and Henry followed, his hands low on my hips. I wanted to rip off my coat because I could barely feel him through the thick wool, but we were almost home and then we could rip off everything. “That does sound extreme.”
