He grins. “Wow, such interesting pictures.” He holds up his phone.
Sadly, my mother still hasn’t mastered her in-home photography skills. She’s showing the cats curled up on the linoleum kitchen floor when I’ve told her a thousand times that she should at least use a white sheet.
“I love the way that shelf is hanging haphazardly off the wall,” he continues. “It’s kind of dark, like she wants you to fear for the cats’ lives while admiring their outfits at the same time.”
I feel a hard pinch, right in the center of my chest. I wonder if my father is laughing right now—just like Ben—while showing my mother’s poor attempt at independence to his country club friends, his new wife giggling as she says, “Oh, Adam, stop”—as if she isn’t enjoying it the most of them all.
“Don’t make fun of my mother,” I snap, but there’s a lump in my throat that warns me I’m not going to be able to hold it together, whether he stops or not. I hate that he’s won this round. I hate that he found this out, and I hate that there are things in my past I’m even more scared he’ll discover. I turn on my heel, stiff as I walk from the room.
“Gemma?” he asks, but I just keep going, because if I try to utter a single word in response, I will absolutely lose it. My lungs feel like they’re lined with shattered glass, so jagged I’m scared to take a full breath.
I go to my office and shut the door, hating that I’m falling apart here and now and with him of all people. I grab my bag and shove my laptop inside.
He knocks, tries the handle, and finds it locked. “Gemma, I—”
“We really don’t need to discuss it,” I announce, making my voice as sharp as possible. “It’s fine.”
I want him to just walk away, but he doesn’t.
“I don’t understand why it upset you so much,” he says. “I was just kidding. You’ve said far worse to me.”
Rage cures my sadness faster than time ever could. I jerk the door open, swinging the bag over my shoulder. “I make fun of the women you date, you make fun of me for not dating at all. That’s fair. Making fun of someone’s mother for being poor while you sit there with your fancy car and big house is not.”
He blinks in surprise, and I see something an awful lot like shame pass over his face. “Gemma,” he says, “I’m sorry. I honestly had no idea. None. You have that whole posh, East Coast, private-school vibe. I assumed you had wildly wealthy parents.”
I did, and now I don’t. Now I’ve got a mother who has to do everything for herself and won’t let me help. That shelf in her kitchen will probably fall eventually. And her car will break down, or she’ll slip on the ice outside her apartment again and I will be here, unable to make it stop.
“You can say what you want about me, but leave my mother out of it.” My voice cracks at the end and I turn away from him, staring into my purse, as if searching for my keys when all I’m really trying to do is hold it together.
“You’re right,” he says, turning me toward him. “And I’m so fucking sorry.”
I want to continue lashing out, but there’s something so gentle and genuine in his gaze that I can’t do it. His hand is on my hip. We are standing close enough for me to smell his soap, to make out the glints of gold in his eyes, to see up close just how much he needs to shave. I picture how that scruff would feel beneath my lips.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly. “It’s just a sore spot.”
His eyes travel over my face, land on my mouth. His breathing is shallow and so is mine.
I want him to kiss me. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
The realization hits all at once, shocking and terrifying, and I stumble away, heading straight for the elevator.
And he stands there, frozen, watching me go.
15
Kyle and I had begun dating in September. By October he’d decided to move to LA permanently. The hitch in our plan was Josie. His settlement offer had been more than generous—I’d reviewed it myself—but she kept coming back with new demands: all of his 401k instead of half, the vacation home that had been in his family for two generations in addition to their apartment in New York.
And every time he flew home, there was a part of me that worried he might not come back. If Josie realized what she’d lost, would he give her another chance for his kids’ sake? I had to fight the desire to look her up online. Was she cuter? Sexier? More impressive? I knew it was a rabbit hole that would lead nowhere good, but it was a struggle, after the way my mother’s life had been upended, not to worry mine would be too.
His work in LA ended in early December, and that was when things got harder. Josie was unreliable—drinking too much, failing to show up when it was her turn with the kids. Half our weekends together were canceled last minute because she’d somehow thrown a wrench in our plans.
And after one of those canceled weekends, crushed by disappointment, I asked him if he was even sure he wanted this.
“There must be a part of you,” I said, “thinking it would be easier just to take Josie back. And I really need to know before this goes any further.”
“Hon,” he replied, “is this really about me, or is it about your dad?”
I had no idea how to answer. I thought my concerns were valid, but yes, there was a part of me that would never stop being stunned by how fast my mother had been abandoned. Three weeks before my dad left with Stephani, he’d taken my mom to the Bahamas for their anniversary, where he gave her a tennis bracelet equal to a year’s tuition—one she sold a few months later to pay legal fees. People change their minds, and you don’t even know until long after they’ve decided it. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Honey,” he said, “I think you need to talk to a therapist, or this will never work. I don’t want to fail at marriage twice.”
“Marriage?”
He gave me an uncertain smile. “I thought it was heading there. Didn’t you?”
I stared at his face on the phone. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I replied after a moment. “I mean…you’re still married. You’re still based in New York.”
“It’s not going to be that much longer until it’s over and then I’ll be there. Unless I misunderstood.” He frowned. “You’re young and I know it’s a lot, the fact that I have two kids.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. I guess it just never occurred to me we were that serious.”
“Gemma,” he said with a quiet laugh, “we are absolutely that serious.”
Over the course of one conversation, he’d taken me from worried to obscenely hopeful. But I guess I can’t fault him for that: I’m the one who should have known better.
16
For the rest of the week, I barely see Ben. He’s busy preparing for a big trial in Charlotte, and spends more time out of the office than in. It’s for the best. I don’t know what that was between us, when I thought he might kiss me—temporary insanity, I suppose—but I need some distance from it still.