She turned into her room, laid Freya on the floor mattress. The baby squirmed for a few seconds and then fell into an instantly deep slumber.
Erik stood in the doorway, lingering, hovering.
“Do you want to talk?” Sasha asked.
She didn’t think he would, not after the day’s events, but he said, “Yeah. Is that okay?”
She nodded.
“Can I get us tea?” he asked.
She nodded again, and he turned to leave. Sasha sat next to Freya on the mattress, putting her hand on the baby’s tummy. She watched it rise and fall with each of Freya’s breaths. She hit the record button on her phone and put it face down on the nightstand. A few minutes later, Erik returned with two cups of tea and sat cross-legged on the floor next to the mattress.
“How is she?” he asked, eyes on his sleeping daughter.
“Totally fine,” Sasha said.
“Took the formula?”
“Like a champ.”
“We won’t tell Ang,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Okay.”
“I don’t normally condone lying, but ...”
“I get it,” Sasha said.
They each took sips of their tea, a noticeable awkwardness in the room with them. If Sasha hadn’t been sure before, she was sure now that there was an electricity between them.
Erik set his mug on the floor and lowered his head into his hands, fingers massaging his scalp. When he looked up again, his eyes were red and watery.
“You’re not okay at all,” Sasha said.
She felt more compassion for him than she’d expected to feel. She had come to see him, like she saw Angeni, as human. In other words, flawed and complex.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Angeni,” he said.
Sasha wondered if she should tell him about the ominous letter, the apparent reason for her latest fainting spell. She decided to wait, to see if he’d bring it up. He’d spent the last several hours with Angeni—she would have told him, wouldn’t she? Unless she didn’t want him to know.
“Like, medically?” Sasha asked.
He shook his head. “More like mentally.”
“Mentally,” Sasha echoed.
“She feels very ... far away. She’s going through something, and she won’t let me in.”
“Has this happened before?”
What were the chances that Sasha had placed herself in the middle of this woman’s nervous breakdown? What were the chances she’d had a part in causing it?
“No,” he said. “I mean, we both had rocky times before we met each other. But I’ve always known her as so ...together.”
“Rocky times?” Sasha inquired, gently.
He lifted his mug, sipped.
