“When was your last pain pill?”
She glanced at the clock over the oven. “Time for ibuprofen. And an ice pack.”
“I’ll get it.” I jumped up, moving to the cupboard she pointed to. Grace looked bewildered by my helpfulness. When was the last time she had anyone fussing over her? I got a glass of water, a large ibuprofen pill from her prescription bottle, and an ice pack out and brought them to her. “Go sit down. I’ll bring you soup in a minute.”
“Dean…” She sighed, looking into my eyes and then down at the floor. “You’re being too thoughtful. This is weird.”
“It’s weird for me to be thoughtful?”
“It’s weird for it to be aimed at me.”
“Exactly. You’re due. What about this other pain med they prescribed?” I touched the bottle next to the ibuprofen. “When was the last time you had that?”
“Vicodin makes me itchy. I’m making due with Tylenol and ibuprofen.”
“Okay.” She was a grown woman. She knew her limits better than anyone. But she was probably feeling terrible. I watched as she slowly eased herself down into a chair at the kitchen table and draped a blanket over her shoulders. Like a little old lady. Only Grace was not a little old lady. Even with her pajama pants, her hair with a flat section in the back from her pillow, and her poor swollen face with an icepack against it, Grace was distractingly beautiful.
I checked myself for thinking about her like that, and then realized I had nothing to feel guilty about. Grace wasn’t married anymore. I had never flirted with her. Not even before she met Rob. I was younger than her by two years, and she never let me forget it.
Maybe one of these days I’d try it out. Just for fun. She would absolutely hate it. But not today. Today was not a day for flirting.
I brought her soup to her, and then went back for mine and brought it to the table. We sat next to each other and ate in comfortable silence. It was practically a crime to eat tomato basil soup without a crusty piece of bread slathered in butter, but since Grace couldn’t eat bread, neither would I.
Her phone pinged, and we both looked around for it. I spotted it first on the counter by the fridge. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.”
I purposely didn’t look at the message on the screen, but I almost wished I had when she bit her lip and stared at it for way too long. Finally, she set the phone face down on the table next to her and returned to eating, but she looked miserable, andthe longer we went without talking about it, the more I felt like I was part of the problem.
“Should I go?”
“Stay.” She put her hand on my arm, holding me in place. “I mean, if you want to.”
“I want to,” I whispered. Maybe it was just the feeling of being needed, but I truly didn’t want to go. I couldn’t. Like a pressure valve about to break off, Grace was on the edge of something.
“It was a text from Rob,” she ground out.
“Is Piper okay?”
“Oh, yeah. His mom’s there. I love his mom.” A tear broke from the edge of her eyelid and slid down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t tell you.” She got up and took her bowl to the sink and began rinsing it out. “This is a friend-to-friend, or therapist-to-patient kind of thing. You don’t want to hear about this. Trust me.”
“Do you want to talk to Jessica about it?”
She shook her head. “Jessica knows. And I love her, but she’s like a dude, she just cuts me off with well-meaning advice.”
“Not every guy is like that. I’m not like that.”
Grace turned and studied me for the longest time, and then the story came out. How Rob had been so fun to be with. Short-tempered at times, but a big teddy bear. And how everything was great for the first year, until they had a fight about whether to keep renting month-to-month in an apartment that was too far from her job and family or move somewhere closer and be locked into a new year-long lease.
“He said he didn’t want another contract, he already felt trapped enough. We’d just found out I was pregnant with Piper.” Grace shook her head. “That was the first time he left. But he always came back.”
She had the edge of the sink in a death grip, but when I got up and put my hand on her shoulder she turned and pressed her forehead into my collarbone. Not exactly a hug, but we weren’t really huggers.
“I thought he and I would be done with this part by now.”
