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“He called me ‘ice queen Kate.’ Said that I boxed my emotions up like a robot.”
She grimaces and then looks off to the side. “I think I need a drink to hear about this.”
She heads into the kitchen, pulls out two tumblers and the gin, and pours a generous measure. She waves the bottle at me, and I nod, coming to stand next to her.
“About twice what you put in yours,” I say, peering into her glass.
“That bad, hunh? Tell me what happened.”
We settle on the couch, and I give her a blow-by-blow account of finding him in the apartment, the loud music, and the angry neighbors. “All the shit I’m carrying, dealing with those irate people after a day of working in the ER. I just feel like I’ve got all this weight, and he’s doing nothing for me. Imiscarried. And even though my doctor brain knows rationally that this happens a lot and often happens for a reason, I got used to the idea of being pregnant. I wanted to meet Josh and …” Tears fill my eyes, and she leans forward and pulls me into a warm hug.
“I know, honey, and I’m so sorry you lost him.”
“He had a big go at me for ‘toughing it out.’” I make air quotes. “Whatever that means. So, I sarcastically said, ‘I’m not that one who’s in the ER every few weeks.’ Then he said I was so clinical, like a doctor.”
She eyes me quietly. “Which is how you’re trained to be? No?”
I blow out a long breath. “He wasn’t making a positive comment.”
“Yeah, I get that. Honey, you’re both devastated, dealing with it in your own ways.” She pats my hand. “Tearing each other apart because you deal with it differently isn’t helping anyone.”
“I don’t think getting high is a way of dealing with anything, more like burying your head in the sand.”
She purses her lips. “You know I love you dearly—” she begins.
I groan.
“… I’m just going to play devil’s advocate and put this out there, okay. You do close down when something bad happens, and I get that, Kate. I’ve met your parents, and I know what they’re like, and I understand that survival for you when you were younger was to close it down. You weren’t a let-it-all-hang-loose person, or even a stand-and-fight person, and it’s not wrong, you just need to recognize that that’s what you do, and get Fabian to understand it too.”
I scowl at her, swilling my ice and getting up for a refill from the kitchen. Liss’s glass is still half full.
I head back to the couch and flop down beside her.
“He sent you roses and poems and bought you a bed. He’s just a man of extremes,” she adds.
“You can say that again.”
“He wanted a family, didn’t he?”
I hate the hope this ignites in my chest. “Yes,” I growl and study the herbs now wilting on our windowsill overlooking 22nd Street.
“Honey, he might mess things up every now and again, but I don’t think he’s an asshole.”
“But am I going to deal with him falling apart for the rest of my life?”
“What makes you think he’s falling apart?”
I pick at a nail on my hand. “I don’t know. How do I know this isn’t the start of some downward spiral?”
“Has he ever fallen apart?”
“He slashed his arm open in the hospital,” I mutter.
She laughs. “I think that was a bit of Fabian extreme behavior to get you back. I mean,reallyfallen apart?”
I roll my eyes. I think about how he got into college, how he confronted Dad and Javier at the wedding, about what he survived and how he’s still standing, about the way he talks to me about my work.His confidence in me.
Liss sighs. “At some point you have to trust people. I think you’ve got a decision to make. Do you trust him enough to believe he’ll come through this?”
