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I let out a breath.
“Okay, good. I just need to get through this bit with my sister first.”
“I understand,” Troy said. “The project is—”
“Do you mind if we don’t talk about work right now?” I asked, cutting him off. “I know you want to talk about work, and I guess at some point we should get together for another run with that, but I can’t focus on work right now.”
“I really need to discuss the project with you,” Troy pressed on.
I shook my head. “If Johnson hasn’t set a date yet, then there’s no reason to talk about it now. I’m not in the mood, Troy. Everything around me is falling apart and work is the last thing I want to have to worry about right now.”
“I understand that,” Troy said. “I just want to run through the project details—”
“Troy,please,” I said. I’d meant to be stern, but my voice wobbled instead, and tears formed in my eyes. It irritated me that I was so close to tears all the time. Nothing had gone wrong yet and the news from the hospital so far wasn’t bad.
Troy looked like he wanted to say something more, but then he let out a breath. “Okay.”
He continued chopping up the salad, and I put the frozen meatballs in the oven to thaw before I threw it all together.
“Tell me about your childhood,” I said. I needed a distraction.
“What about it?”
I shrugged. “Anything. You and Scott are close. It’s always just the two of you? Neither of you really date?”
Troy shook his head. “I guess it’s never been a thing. I mean, if the right person comes along, Scott says he won’t turn her down, but that hasn’t happened for him yet.”
“Hmm,” I said. “It’s a noble way of looking at it. So many people want to be in a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship, and they don’t care about compatibility. It’s always this big race against time, but I don’t get what the point is if it doesn’t make you happy, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Troy said. “I think it should be about happiness, too. Time is relative, anyway. We have a lot more of it than we realize.”
“Or a lot less,” I said softly, thinking about Rachel. I cleared my throat and shook off the thoughts before I got emotional again. I really had to pull myself together. “What about you? Also waiting for the right one to come along?”
Troy hesitated. “I’ve never really been focused on starting a family. I wasn’t exactly waiting; I had other priorities.”
“Had?” I asked. “Past tense?”
Troy looked bashful. “I don’t know, sometimes things change, you know?”
I nodded, although I didn’t know exactly what he was referring to. I knew how things had changed in my own life—work had always been everything, I was serious about making it big and working hard had gotten me there so far. Now that Rachel was sick and the kids were in my care indefinitely, work didn’t matter so much. What mattered was my family and that everything would be okay.
When the spaghetti and meatballs were done, I called the kids, and we sat down for supper. Troy was still here. I hadn’t asked him to stay this long, but I was grateful he did.
We chatted and laughed, and he kept everything upbeat, telling jokes and keeping the kids’ spirits high.
After supper, it was bath time and then bedtime, and it was easier to get them down than I’d thought it would be.
“I think they’re exhausted after the emotions of the day,” I said when I pulled the last door shut and glanced at Troy.
“It’s been a tough one,” Troy said.
“You don’t have to stay this long, you know. You can go home, I’ll be okay.”
“I don’t have anywhere to rush to,” Troy said.
Before I could answer, telling him again that this wasn’t his problem, my phone rang, and Tom’s name flashed on the caller ID.
“Oh, my God, Tommy,” I said. “Are you with her?”
