A few hours later there’s a knock on the door, and I open it to Eli, leaning against the doorframe and looking delectable.
“Hi,” he says, coming in for a quick kiss that turns into something a bit longer.
“How was the hospital?” I ask, moving aside so he can come in and kick his shoes off. He immediately reclines on the bed and stares up at me. When he doesn’t respond for a minute, I ask, “What?”
“I just was thinking how unbelievably surreal this is. You’re just here, and you’reyou, and I get to waltz in here and tell you about my evening like that’s completely normal and easy.”
“Itisnormal.” I shrug, plopping down on the bed next to him. “It’s just in person instead of over text or while walking a dog.”
“Okay, then maybe it’s the easy part I’m not used to,” he says quietly.
I give him another kiss, soft and simple, and then rest my head on his shoulder. “So how was it?” I ask.
He sighs, and it’s weary, the happiness of our earlier revelations today having bled into reality as the afternoon went on.
“They’re keeping her in the hospital for another couple of days because of her age and their worries about her stability. My dad is still trying to push her to look at facilities, and it feels like we’re silently in a war with each other while we both pretend to be completely fine in front of my mother. It’s exhausting.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I agree.
“I just need to get her home and take it from there,” he says determinedly.
“I think one step at a time is a great plan.”
“You’re much more agreeable as a girlfriend than as a neighbor,” he teases. And then his eyes go wide, and I can almost anticipate the meltdown that’s incoming. “Not that we ... not that you want ... I just ...”
I stop him from blabbering with a kiss. “One step at a time is a great plan,” I repeat with a grin. “But that doesn’t sound so bad.”
His eyebrows rise, and I wonder if the goofy grin on his face is what mine looks like too. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I agree, as he rolls me over to give me another kiss.
“I can’t believe you’re only here for another day,” he groans. “Thistiming.”
“It’ll be okay,” I say. And then, testing our new in-person honesty limits, I venture out on a limb with the one question I really want to know. “Do you have a sense of how long you think you’ll stay once you get your mom home?”
He’s silent for a minute, distracting both of us easily with light kisses across my shoulder. But then he looks back up. “I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t let my dad just put her somewhere. As long as he’s unwilling to oversee her care, I don’t really know how I can be anywhere but here until she’s fully back on her feet. It’s such a slippery slope—once someone goes in one of those places, it’s hard to get out, you know?”
I nod, wanting to be supportive. “Well, maybe it’s a silver lining if you were homesick for London anyway.”
He tilts his head at me, like he’s not computing. “I’m not homesick for London,” he says.
“You’re not?” I ask, one of my last niggling questions now weaseling its way to the surface.
“No, I actually love New York.”
“All the baking and ... I don’t know, sometimes you just seemed a little sad to be there,” I point out.
A wistful look of understanding washes over him. “No,” he says with another kiss to my shoulder, like if he doesn’t touch me every so often, he’ll stop believing I’m real. “I’m homesick for Nan.” He takes a deep breath. “The last few months, I’ve been missing her terribly, so I’ve been trying to do the things we used to do together, like the baking and the planters. I just miss her. But New York makes it better, strange as it sounds. It’s comforting to be in her space, even if it’s hard sometimes.”
I wrap my arms around him, grateful to now know. Grateful that my biggest fear—that he’ll want to stay here, in London—is unfounded.
“Well then, you’ve got to focus on getting your mom home, settled and healthy. And then you need to actually have a real conversation with your dad about your feelings. No more silent wars.”
“Do I get free therapy now if we’re dating?” he says, and I can hear the smirk in his tone. I sit up and give him an exasperated look.
“Okay, for my mental and ethical ease of mind, we are making itextremelyclear that I was not your therapist for quite a long time before any of this started and even then it was only a few sessions. So no, never your therapist again. Besides, it’s nottherapyif it’s just advice. I can’t help that I’m trained to communicate.”
He narrows his eyes gleefully. “Trained to communicate—exceptwhen it comes to parents! I’ll have a heart-to-heart with my dad when you finally sit your mother down and set some boundaries.”
