“Would I what?”
“Would you ever take the meds?”
“Oh...” Cherry grimaced. “I don’t know. It feels like... Well, no offense,honestly, but that would feel like giving up.”
“On losing weight naturally?”
“God, no—I’ll never lose weight naturally. I meant... giving up on the fight, you know? The good fight to be... accepted, I guess. Or to accept myself.”
“Geez, Cherry, you reallyarenoble.”
Cherry was still thinking. “Also, I worry about what the drugs would do to my brain. Like, every time someone says that Ozempic quiets their ‘food noise’? I shudder. It’s not food noise to me—it’s foodmusic.”
Hope laughed.
“I’m serious,” Cherry said. “Ilikeliking food. I like being hungry. I like wanting things—and yearning. Do you still yearn?”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever noticed my yearning,” Hope said. “Maybe I’m not a natural yearner.”
“Oh, I am.” Cherry folded her arms and leaned her shoulder into the seat, getting more comfortable. “I could yearn professionally. I think I kind ofdo—all my success comes from wanting something more or something better.”
“I still like food...” Hope said thoughtfully.
“That’s good,” Cherry said.
“...but I don’t think about it very much.”
“That sounds terrible.”
Hope laughed. “For the first six months on the meds, I was toonauseated to think about anything. And for the last six months... Well, all I can think about is whether we can afford two mortgages and whether the kids will want to live with me or Dan. Maybe I’m not the best person to ask about Mounjaro brain.” She smiled at Cherry, fondly—a little indulgent. “ ‘Yearning’... I always think you’re the most like me. I forget that you’re a romantic.”
Cherry wrinkled her nose but didn’t argue. She looked down at her own lap. (What there was of it.) “Tom wants to come home,” she said.
“What?Really?”
Cherry nodded.
“Do you want him to come home?”
Cherry shook her head, but she said, “So bad.”
“So...”
Cherry felt a new rush of tears. She looked up at Hope. “I don’t know if I can forgive him. I don’t know how I can ever believe him when he says that he loves me.”
“Cherry...”Hope tilted her head. Her voice was tender. “Whatever else is true—Tom loves you. That’s always been clear as day.”
Cherry wiped her nose on her hand. “I could say the same about Danny, you know.”
Hope had opened the compartment in the armrest and dug out another Starbucks napkin for Cherry. “Please don’t.”
Cherry blew her nose.
They both sat there sniffling for a minute or two. Cherry was wondering whether a GLP-1 agonist would make her think less about Tom.
Finally she said—“What do you think Mom’s in there doing?”
“Texting Honny and Joy and Faith, and organizing a prayer circle.”
