Not your fault.
Roman
Still. He’s an idiot.
A well-meaning idiot.
Roman
The worst kind.
I shouldn’t smile at that, but I do.
Monday. Seven AM. Don’t be late.
Roman
Wouldn’t dream of it.
I toss my phone on the passenger seat and pull out of the parking lot, definitely not thinking about the way the water ran down Roman’s chest, or how his voice sounded when he said “I feel it,” or the fact that Brody Carter texted his wife “hot PT” and I’m not sure whether to be flattered or mortified.
Probably both.
Definitely both.
Mom’s waiting when I pull up, but she smiles and takesthe cup with hands that shake slightly, and says, “You’re glowing. Good morning?”
“Complicated morning.”
“The best kind.” She sips her coffee and doesn’t push, which is how I know she knows something’s different.
We drive to the cancer center in comfortable silence, and I try not to compare the two parts of my life that refuse to stay separated. The daughter taking her dying mother to get bloodwork. The PT who just spent an hour with her hands on a man who makes her forget every professional boundary she’s ever maintained.
The center is quiet this early. We check in at the desk, find our usual seats in the waiting area, and Mom pulls out her phone to show me photos from her garden that Teresa took yesterday.
“The tomatoes are coming in,” she says, scrolling through pictures of plants I haven’t had time to visit. “They’re the best I’ve had in years.”
“That’s great, Mom.”
“You should come by and pick some. Make that pasta thing you used to love.”
“I will.”
But we both know I probably won’t. That I’ll get caught up in work and appointments and therapy sessions that run long, and by the time I remember the tomatoes they’ll be past ripe and Teresa will have used them for sauce.
“Linda Walker?” The nurse calls from the doorway.
Mom stands, steady on her feet today, and I follow her back. They draw blood from her left arm because the right is too damaged, and she doesn’t flinch when the needle goes in. She’s gotten good at this. Too good. The kind of good that comes from doing something so many times it stops being frightening and just becomes routine.
After, we sit in the car for a moment before I start the engine.
“That man,” Mom says. “The one making you glow. Is he worth it?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Marnie.”
“It’s complicated.”
