I tried very hard to sound casual and Brie picked up on it immediately. “You never bring guys home.”
“I do,” I lied.
“Not that I’ve ever seen.”
I jerked up a shoulder. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen when you’re not here.”
“What’s the deal with him? He’s a doctor, obviously, but where’d you meet, how long has it been, does he have a brother, so on and et cetera.”
“Whyobviously?”
She sighed like I was causing her real pain. “Because he asked on two separate and unnecessary occasions if I was having any fevers or vomiting and then asked to check my incision.”
I tore my gaze away from the muffins. The warmth was back. It spread down to my fingers and burned my cheeks and buzzed in my head like the moment a sleeping pill started to kick in. “He-he did?”
She studied her nails. “Yes. Very thorough. Last night and this morning. One might call that thoroughly unnecessary.”
“We’re going to need a few more weeks between your last hospital stay and emergency bowel resection before we can call it unnecessary.” I broke off a chunk of pistachio muffin and popped it in my mouth. “What do you have going on today?”
“We can’t talk about Henry?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, no.”
She pulled the clip out of her hair and ran her fingers through the strands. “I’m a great listener.”
That part was true. She was a great listener—when she wanted to be. There were times when Brie was my best friend and most trusted confidant. And then there were times when she didn’t return my calls or texts for a full month.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just not something I want to talk about yet.”
Undeterred, Brie pressed on. “Does it help that you see each other at work? Because you have so much in common? Or do you get tired of each other and the medical stuff?”
I grabbed a quarter of a blueberry muffin, eating it in two bites. “We haven’t gotten tired of each other yet.”
“I’d totally get bored. I don’t want to talk to anyone about work after hours. I don’t even want to talk about work during work.”
I went for the cranberry orange muffin, murmuring along as if I agreed. I understood her point, but our work worlds were very different. She coordinated travel accommodations for executives. She could work anywhere, any time. Arranging travel wasn’t the cornerstone of her identity the way surgery was for me—and most of the docs I knew.
She tapped the clip on the countertop. “Have you given any thought to meeting up with Dad next month?”
And that was when I choked on my muffin.
I coughed and sputtered for a minute, and then gulped enough coffee to wash it all away. Once I recovered, Brie said, “I take that as a no.”
“No, I haven’t thought about it,” I said, my voice raspy. “I’d rather not think about it.”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “I know you have strong feelings about him and how everything went when we were kids, but?—”
“It’s not like he missed a few holidays and birthdays, Brie. He’s refused to see us since we were born. He refused to acknowledge that we existed.”
“The entire situation has been fucked up from the start, Whit. You know that.”
“I do, and that’s why I don’t really understand why he wants to meet us now.”
“Don’t you think we’ve been through enough? Don’t you think we deserve to put some of the pieces of our life back together? I mean, seriously, Whit, don’t you ever stop and think about everything we went through back then? How horrible it was?”
“Believe me, I know more about that than you ever will. I got to watch Mom fall the fuck apart when he wouldn’t visit after you were born because he didn’t believe you were his kid. I got to watch her cry all day long for weeks because he showed her who he was once again. I got to call Gram and tell her we needed help because there was no food in the house, no diapers, no formula, and Mom couldn’t get out of bed. I was barely seven years old! So, tell me why I have to be the one to acknowledgehimafter all this time. Why do I have to accept him when he never once did that for me? And while you’re at it, can you tell me whyyouwant him in your life?”
“It’s as much her fault as it is his,” Brie yelled. “Mom knew what she was doing the first time around. She knew he was married. She knew he wouldn’t leave his family. Just like she knew he was her commanding officer and it would screw up her career. None of it stopped her. She probably got pregnant on purpose. And then she did it all over again.”
