“I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she says, taking my hand across the table.
“You know how the holidays get.”
She nods like she understands completely. “We went to my parents for a few days. Tyler was completely spoiled. My mother bought him way more than he could actually play with.” She laughs, shaking her head. “How was your Christmas?”
“Good. Really good. The kids had a great day.”
We talk for a while about the kids and family. It’s nice. Genuinely. That’s what makes this so hard. We could have been friends if I didn’t have to do what I’m about to do.
“Karen,” I say when there’s a gap in conversation, and the way I sound, the way she looks at me, she already knows.
Her smile falls for the first time since we arrived.
“I’m sorry, I—I haven’t been able to be fully present with you, and you deserve better than that. I think it might be best for us to go our separate ways.”
“Is this about your ex-wife? Are you not over her?” she asks, her face soft with pity. And it would be easy to let her think that, but no.
I can’t lie.
I’ve done enough of that.
“Not exactly.” I look at the table. I’ve never said this to anyone. And it could ruin everything. But she deserves to know. “It’s actually… Um. It’s actually Will.”
“Will,” she repeats slowly, wrapping her tongue around his name. The meaning.
“Yes,” I nod, meeting her eyes.
She sits back in her chair and lets out a breath. And when she brings her hand back up to rest on mine, she doesn’t look angry. “Oh, sweetie. That’s—That’s not good.”
Those words hit me right in the heart, the first reaction to something I’ve been holding in for so long. It brings up emotions in my eyes that I didn’t even know I had, leaving me fighting back tears. “I know,” I say, my voice cracking.
“He went to prison. He’s your brother-in-law. What would the town think?” She shakes her head. “I’m not saying any of this to be cruel. I’m worried for you.”
“I can’t help it,” I tell her, pausing when a group of people walk by. “I’ve been trying for months.”
She squeezes my hand. “Does he feel the same way?”
“I think he might. In his own way.”
“Then I hope it works out. For your sake.”
“Thank you. For being so good about all this,” I say, with a sniffle.
We sit there for another few minutes, finishing our coffee, and when we stand to leave, she hugs me tight and says tobe careful with him.
I try not to let that get to me.
Victoria comes to find me after my last patient leaves, leaning in my office doorway with her coat already on and her purse over her shoulder. “I’m going to lunch,” she says. “You’ve got a walk-in.”
“Okay, then why are you going to lunch?”
She raises her eyebrows up and down in a suggestive way. “I think you can handle this one on your own.” She disappears before I can ask what that means. Lord knows why I keep her around when she can’t even do her job.
I finish the chart I’m working on and head out to the waiting room, surprised to find Will. I look around for any other patient, but the room is otherwise empty.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, stopping in front of him where he’s sitting in one of our new waiting room chairs. “Are you sick?”
“Something like that.”
