“You don’t need to prove yourself.”
Valerie gave him an exasperated look. “Everyone has to prove themselves,” she said. “All the time, for everything.”
She returned to her plans while Nico looked out the window and drank his coffee. He gave her a last kiss on the head—or rather on the silk scarf she’d draped over her hair and around her neck like a 1950s movie star—causing her to angle her face up for more. Then he headed to the office. Some might consider it odd that he found the office a comforting place, but he did. He liked its orderly nature, or did once he’d cleared out Roger’s cups and put the old newspapers out. Gave the desk a wipe down. Straightened the monitor and refolded the Icelandic throwblanket on the corner chair before resetting the lamp to illuminate the correct spot so he could sit and clear his mind. Because after listening to Roger talk about regrets, he had decided to call Stefanie.
Then he’d kept putting it off. He didn’t want to call his sister. He felt in many ways he could continue to live without Stefanie in his life. However, many ways was not all ways, and being with Valerie had reminded him of what he missed about Stefanie. Sure, she had been a pain. It was possible he had also been a pain.
Nico wouldn’t call himself impulsive, but there were times when things needed to get done and thinking about them was akin to thinking his way out of them. It was time for him to call—just to see, as Valerie would say. He picked up his phone.
“Hello, Nico.” Call display had removed any surprise a phone call could bring, and Stephanie’s neutral tone meant either she was being careful or she was being polite.
“Hi.” He cast around for something to say that would start the conversation off because his mind had gone blank. Asking about Stefanie’s husband might be a good start. He hadn’t heard about him in a while. “How’s Mike?”
There was a long pause. “Are you for real?”
“What do you mean?”
“Christ, this is low even for you.” Her voice broke. “Did you call to rub it in?”
“Rubwhatin?” Confusion was shifting to make space for concern.
“That Mike left. We’re separated. He left twenty days ago.”
Nico felt sick. Stefanie and Mike had been together for a decade. “Why didn’t you tell me?” This was what Kimmy had alluded to, and he couldn’t be mad about being left out because it was his own fault. God, what an asshole he was.
“Why would I? I didn’t think you’d care, especially after Kimmy said she’d told you things were bad with me and you didn’t bother to call. Iknow we have problems but I thought when push came to shove, you’d be there for me.”
He heard the unsaidand you weren’t. She was right. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, all the anger draining out past the shield of protective defensiveness he’d automatically deployed. How could they have let their relationship deteriorate this badly?
“Yeah, well. Whatever.”
Part of him wanted to hang up and pretend none of this was happening, but he couldn’t. He was going to have to bite the bullet if he wanted to fix things. “I should have called before,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Now you care?”
He could feel the edges of the fight and his instinct was to give in to it, fed by the shame of neglecting his sister. He wouldn’t. “I do. I want to talk.”
“About what?”
“Mike, if you want.”
“Not really.”
“Then us.” He looked at his tablet, where he had mapped out possible routes the discussion could go, then pushed it away. “What’s happened between us is bothering Kimmy.”
“I know that. I keep in touch with her.”
Nico ignored the little dig. “I don’t like it either.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” she said. “I’m not the one who stopped showing up for family dinners, or who ignores the group chat, or who’s apparently holding grudges from childhood.”
“I know.” He took a breath. “You think you’re only teasing, but I couldn’t handle how bad it made me feel about myself anymore. I didn’t know how to talk about what was bothering me. I stopped trying.”
“You distanced yourself from the whole family because of me?”
“Because of how I felt.”
They sat on the phone for a moment, then Stefanie sighed. “Mike says I never pay attention. You said the other day that I should have known it had gone too far. How?”
