Tensing up, she reached for her purse, fumbling for her key chain. “Is your lease up? Of course you can stay with me—”
“Remember I have three spare bedrooms in the townhouse I’m renting,” Boyd chose that unfortunate moment to chime in, no doubt thinking he was being helpful. Rosie paused before handing her keys to Tom, hesitating as though checking whether Tom wanted to take Boyd up on his offer instead.
He didn’t want tostaywith Rosie any more than he wanted to stay with Boyd, if the word implied a temporary state.
Well, shit. He really hadn’t pulled it off. Rosie was headed out, and he still wasn’t even sure they were together again. It didn’t appear that they lived together. He didn’t even know when he’d see her again.
The anger that rose up in his throat was directed entirely at himself, but he still resolutely forced it down. Rosie was so tired she was nearly swaying on her feet, and her day had just begun. She looked overwhelmed and scared.
The last thing she needed was for Tom to make this about him.
“No, my lease isn’t up for a while. Just text me if you need anything in the city,” he said. “And call me when you know something at the hospital, okay?”
The crunch of gravel outside heralded the arrival of Rosie’s taxi. Her eyes flashed with panic.
“I still have to finish breakfast for everyone,” she said, turning to survey the stovetop and ovens. “And thank everyone for all their help. And I was going to talk to you—”
“Babe,” he interrupted her. “I’ll get breakfast out. And everyone knows. Don’t worry. You can go. I’ve got it.”
She grabbed his hand, hesitating. She looked out the door, then back at him. She squeezed his hand harder, jolting when the taxi outside honked but not letting go. Her little fingers curled in under the edge of his sleeve as though trying to hang on.
“I love you,” Tom said, leaning in to kiss her temple, giving her his blessing to go. That was his cue, right?
“Love you too,” Rosie said, releasing him at last.
28
Three weeks later
Boston
Tom thought it would have been more dramatic if it was raining when he arrived, but it was a rare and lovely clear spring day. The modest Dorchester neighborhood where Rosie had grown up was full of people outside in the sun to wash the last winter salt off rusting cars.
He paced the sidewalk opposite the white two-story home he’d last visited more than a decade before, wishing he could smoke. It had been almost six months since his last cigarette, and it hadn’t been a regular habit even then, but Rosie’s uncles and cousins were cycling in and out to smoke on the porch, and either the secondhand waft of tobacco across the street or Tom’s nervousness about the situation was making him crave a big carcinogenic punch of nicotine straight to his lungs.
After twenty minutes, someone called him on his lurking. A redhead emerged from Rosie’s house and crossed the street to fix him with a judgmental stare that took in his poorly fitting oxford and ratty old backpack.
“You’re late,” his best friend grumped at him.
“I was on time. I just…didn’t know everyone was going to be here,” Tom told Adrian, eyeing the full house across the street. It looked like Rosie’s parents were throwing a party to welcome Max home from the hospital, and Tom had not exactly been invited.
“I assume from Rose’s reaction whenIturned up here that you didn’t tell heryouwere coming either?”
Tom nervously rubbed the back of his neck at this accurate statement. He hadn’t seen Rosie since she’d left Martha’s Vineyard, though it wasn’t like she hadn’t been in touch. There was a long chain of perfectly domestic texts from her on his phone, ones that began early in the morning and ended late at night.
Rosie: Max has Playbills for all your shows in a file in her desk. Thank you
and
Rosie: I put both our names on the play gym for Ximena’s baby shower. The registry had all this beige linen stuff but I think they’ll hear about it in family therapy if they assign the kid Victorian explorer at birth?
and
Rosie: I got my period in the hospital billing department. Somehow life-affirming?
If Tom had been hit by an MTA bus on his way to rehearsal, any stranger who found his phone might have looked at these messages and assumed,That’s his partner.And while he was glad to know exactly where Rosie was and what she was doing if he couldn’t actually be with her, he would really rather have been with her. For one, hemissedher. And for another thing, her dickbag family had predictably dropped everything into Rose’s small hands, even though Max had three perfectly capable younger brothers and half a dozen other nephews and nieces in the Boston area alone who could have helped out. Instead, Rosie and Max were both staying at her parents’ house while Rosie figured out what level of care Max was going to need and how she was going to afford it.
So Tom spent his days looking at his phone, wishing for a life with Rosie outside of it, and his nights awake and fixated on the terrible unfairness of Rosie dealing with hospital bills, outpatient rehab, and health aides all on her own. After three weeks of this, he sat bolt upright with a realization:Oh fuck me, I did it again.
