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She nods, but her face is vacant, unmoved. She doesn’t wantanybaby. She wants the one she lost, and this is how Caleb wins, no matter how wrong he is for her, no matter how unhappy he makes her: because he gave her something she loved, once upon a time, and she still believes he’s the only one who can give it to her again.
I’m beginning to think that will never change.
35
KATE
When we get into the house, he undresses me and I allow it, apathy making my limbs hang heavy. I assume undressing will progress the way it normally does—his mouth, his hands—but instead he pulls me into bed, cradling me against his chest, and tells me to go to sleep.
I wake still feeling as if I’m under water or coming out of a long illness. My body is heavy, my brain muddled. I’d like to just stay in bed.
I didn’t wind up at Kent’s yesterday. I guess it’s a victory, but I’m still closer to the girl who gave up last year—the one who felt ambivalent about her outcome—than the girl I was a week ago.
I go into work, ignoring the grief and the exhaustion. My steps are leaden; my smile is forced.
Nothing changed yesterday. Hannah isn’t coming back. Caleb is moving on.
I’ve ignored Kayleigh’s texts about yoga for so long that she’s stopped reaching out. Jeremy’s calls go to my voicemail unanswered. I’m tired of his plots. I’m tired of hoping for anything. I was expecting Holzig would have had the decency to send me a rejection letter, but it looks like that won’t be happening either.
Rachel comes in, so pregnant she’s waddling and wearing sneakers for the first time. She asks how I am and I lie to her, just as I lied to Beck. He knows something’s wrong. When I tell him I’m fine, his frustration is palpable.
I wake the next day and the day after that, hoping that if I just keep moving my feet forward, I’ll come up with a destination for myself, a thing to want.
But I don’t think it’s going to work.
* * *
The sky isgray on Monday morning as Beck leaves for the bar. “I’m taking the truck since they’re saying it might flood. You want to ride with me?”
I shake my head. “I have some errands to run first.”
His glance flickers to me before he nods. I guess he knows I’ve started going to the cemetery every morning. I’m glad he doesn’t feel the need to stop me.
I sit at Hannah’s grave, dry-eyed and empty. How do I move on from this? How do I let her go when I’m the only one who even seems to remember her, when I can see so clearly who she could have become?
The rain starts as I return to the car, and it’s torrential by the time I reach the office. No one should be out in this weather, and the bar is dead, yet two hours later, Rachel enters—her cheeks pink and glowing, her hair soaking wet. She’s thirty-eight weeks along, and today was probably her final checkup before delivery. Her broad smile strikes terror in my chest. She doesn’t understand how wrong it can go. I can barely stand not to grab her by the shoulders and detail it for her.
“Everything’s good?” I ask as we sit at a table to order lunch.
“Other than my husband’s needless panic,” she says with a laugh. “He suggested flipping the car to make sure the car seat would remain in place.”
I glance outside. “Maybe not the craziest idea with the way Elliott Springs floods.”
She glances out the window, her brows raised in surprise. “Wow, it’s really coming down, isn’t it? I hope Gus cancels his afternoon tour. I don’t want him climbing in this.”
I shove my menu away from me. “I think we should skip lunch. You should get home in case the roads are blocked off.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “It’s justrain, Kate.”
I nod, but my tension remains, and by the time our food has arrived, I’ve lost my appetite. If I was Gus, I’d have enshrined Rachel in bubble wrap and forbidden her from leaving the house.
She starts telling me about her trip to the farmer’s market last weekend, and I fret, pushing the food on my plate.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demands. “Your mood has plummeted since I arrived.”
My lips press together. “Look how high the water is in the parking lot while you’re telling me about Gus not realizing arugula was a vegetable. Please,pleasego home.”
She laughs. “Just foryou, I’ll go home. But you’re being ridiculously paranoid. You’re my Gus away from Gus.”
