I bit my trembling lip, my eyes welling. It was so validating—his reaction, his wrath. Just like when Drew said John was a sexist asshole, implying the ridicule wasn’t my fault. I didn’t believe him at the time, but I was starting to.
I was about to say thank you when Luke took in my expression. In an instant he picked up the chair and dropped back into it. “Oh no, she’s crying again. Um, fuck.” He pushed both hands into his brown locks. “I don’t know how to say the right thing.”
“No, no. It’s not that, your reaction”—I shook my head and wiped away the tears, replacing them with a reassuring smile—“it’s validating. It makes me feel like…like it wasn’t my fault. I was so embarrassed, I didn’t want anyone to know. I thought it made me weak, proved I wasn’t cut out for the job after all.”
He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand, and a feeling of safety—the opposite of panic—emanated through my body from the spot where our skin touched. “You’re not weak, Val. That’s called a hostile work environment.”
I nodded, willing myself to believe him.
His soft eyes searched my face.
“It was the perfect thing to say. All of it.”
“Ha,” he breathed. “Good.” He leaned back in his chair but didn’t let go of my hand.
The afternoon light streaming in the kitchen window reflected off the countertop behind Luke like a mirror.
After a moment he added, “That’s some damn good writing, Val. Who knew two pages of text could infuriate me so much I nearly broke one of my own dining chairs.”
I bit the insides of my lips, a smile begging to break free. “Thanks, Luke.” Relief coursed through me, my heart rate long steadied.
He left his hand on mine, like he had nowhere he’d rather be. I stared at the tanned fingers, noted the roughness of his callouses.My anchor in this confusing storm of mine.
“What were you going to say when you got home, before you saw I was upset?” I asked softly, voice still a little hoarse. I lifted my gaze to his face, wondering if he’d remember.
His chocolate eyes bore into mine. His jaw flexed, like he was questioning whether to tell me. “I was going to say…I’m becoming addicted to seeing you at my table when I get home every day.”
My breath caught, and those brown eyes begged me to admit that I was addicted, too. I opened my mouth. And then my alarm sounded, my phone vibrating violently on the wooden surface of the table. I exhaled. “We need to go get Luna.”
29
It’d been two days since Luke told me he was getting addicted to seeing me when he gets home, and for some reason unknown even to me, I haven’t told him I’d broken up with Max. I played Luke’s comment over and over in my head, exhilaration swirling through my insides each time. I stirred the vegetables I was sautéing on Mimi’s stove, psychoanalyzing myself.Why am I reluctant to tell him I’m single now?
No longer emboldened by alcohol and wandering eyes, I was afraid to find out if the flirtation between us was the crackling surface of something real, or just for fun. I didn’t know if he dated or was interested in dating. He’d never talked about it. And even if he did feel something, I worried he wouldn’t want to risk it, given how well things were going with me babysitting Luna for him.
Mimi was due home any minute from running errands with her friend Cathy. Cathy had been one of Mimi’s closest friends on the island for as long as I could remember. She often reminded me that she’s known me since I was a child digging for crabs and other critters at the beach.
My phone buzzed on the table. I turned the burner down and grabbed it. It was Cathy.
“Val, everything is okay now.” My stomach dropped. “But we’re at Vineyard Hospital.”
The room froze as my panic spiked. “What happened?”
“We were at the store, and your grandmother started to feel faint. Before we could find her somewhere to sit, she collapsed.”
“Did she hurt herself?”
“No, just a bruise on her arm. She didn’t hit her head or anything.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I turned off the stove, threw on flip flops, and ran out the door.
An hour later I sat in a chair next to Mimi’s bed while she rested. The doctor said she was only dehydrated, and there was nothing to indicate the fainting spell was caused by her heart. She’d had an arrhythmia in the past, so of course that was immediately where my mind went as I drove five miles an hour over the speed limit on the way here. I called my mom on the way. My family was visiting us starting that weekend, and my mom changed her plans so she’d arrive tomorrow instead.
They planned to give her fluids, run a few tests, and monitor her for the next twenty-four hours, but expected she would be released by tomorrow morning. Mimi herself was fine—personality fully intact, embarrassed that people were making a big deal out of it.
Sitting here, looking at the monitors, leg bouncing, I was beyond uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with the hard plastic chair beneath me. Mimi’s personality was so youthful, I sometimes forgot she was in her eighties. She’d long felt more like a friend than my grandparent, always showing interest in my life, my friends, and my boyfriends, and sharing stories of her own. She stayed strong through grieving my grandfather, but that had to have taken a toll on her. Aging was so cruel. I usually made it to Martha’s Vineyard at least once per summer, but I oftenspent most of the time upstairs in the spare bedroom, hunched over my laptop, stressing about whether the internet would hold. I shook my head at the memory. With Mimi’s age, who knew how many more summers we’d have together.I can’t believe I missed some.
