I turn slightly inward, and he mirrors me. “Not good,” I say, honestly.
“Yeah,” he says. “I figured. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.”
I look at him. His eyes meet mine.
“She’s—” I start, but I can’t finish it. The wind picks up, dancing the leaves and trash into a veritable ballet. I start to cry.
“It’s okay,” he says. He makes a move forward, but I take one back and we stand on the street like that, not quite meeting, until the river quiets.
“It’s not,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
I swallow what remains of my tears. I look across at him. I feel anger hit my bloodstream like alcohol. “You don’t,” I say. “You have no idea.”
“Dan—”
“You don’t have to do this, you know. No one would blame you.”
He peers at me. “What do you mean?” He seems to genuinely not understand.
“I mean, this isn’t what you signed up for. You met a pretty girl, she was healthy, she’s not anymore.”
“Dannie,” Aaron says, like he’s choosing his words very carefully. “It’s important that you know that I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why?” I ask him.
A jogger passes by and, sensing the tension of the moment, crosses the street. A car horn honks. A siren whirls somewhere down Hudson.
“Because I love her,” he says.
I ignore the confession. I’ve heard it before. “You don’t even know her.”
I start walking again. A kid zooms past us with a basketball, his mother sprinting after him. The city. Full and buzzy and unaware that somewhere, fifteen blocks south, tiny cells are multiplying in a plot to destroy the whole world.
“Dannie. Stop.”
I don’t. And then I feel Aaron’s hand on my arm. He yanks and turns me around.
“Ow!” I say. “What the hell.” I rub my upper arm. I am, all at once, overcome with the urge to slap him, to punch him in the eye and leave him, crumpled and bleeding, on the corner of Perry Street.
“Sorry,” he says. His eyebrows are knit together. He has a dimple in the space above his nose. “But you need to listen to me. I love her. That’s the long and short of it. I don’t think I could live with myself if I bailed now, but that’s not even relevant because, like I said, I love her. This isn’t like anything I’ve ever had before. This is real. I’m here.”
His chest rises and falls like it’s taking physical effort to be upright. That I understand.
“It’s going to be more painful if you leave later,” I say. I feel my lip quiver again. I demand it to stop.
Aaron reaches out to me. He takes both my elbows in his palms. His chest is so close I can smell him.
“I promise,” he says.
We must walk back. I must call a car. We must say goodnight. I must come home and tell David. I must, at some point, fall asleep. But later I don’t remember. All I remember is his promise. I take it. I hold it in my heart like proof.
Chapter Twenty-Two
On Tuesday, October 4, I arrive at Mount Sinai on East One Hundredth Street an hour before the scheduled surgery. I still haven’t spoken to Bella, but I come to her pre-op room to find both her father and mother there. I don’t think they’ve been in the same room in over a decade.
The room is loud, even boisterous. Jill, her hair blown out and impeccably dressed in a Saint Laurent suit, chats with the nurses as if she’s preparing to host a luncheon, not for her daughter’s reproductive organs to be removed.
