Chương 7
“Emily.”
Something in her face made Emily put down the tablet.
“What?”
“There’s a man asking for you.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Ryan?”
“I assume.”
Diane glanced toward the lobby.
“He said he’s your husband.”
Emily stood.
Mr. Dalton looked between them.
“I can stay if you need an elderly bodyguard.”
“You’d throw out your shoulder.”
“I’d throw the other one.”
Emily smiled weakly.
“Thank you.”
She followed Diane into the hallway.
“Do you want me to tell him to leave?”
Emily almost said yes.
Then she saw Ryan through the glass panel beside the waiting-room door.
He wore the navy jacket he usually wore to work.
His hair was damp, and he was holding a cardboard drink carrier with two coffees.
He looked exhausted.
Not dangerous.
That made the situation harder.
“I’ll talk to him outside.”
Diane studied her.
“You sure?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
Emily stepped into the lobby.
Ryan stood immediately.
“Hey.”
The word sounded too normal.
Several patients sat nearby.
A woman with a walker was filling out paperwork.
An older man watched a morning news show mounted near the ceiling.
Emily lowered her voice.
“You can’t come here.”
“I brought coffee.”
“You can’t come here.”
Ryan looked down at the drink carrier as though it had betrayed him.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“Then text me.”
“I did.”
“You added that I was insane.”
“I said leaving was insane.”
Emily stared at him.
Ryan rubbed his jaw.
“Can we please not do this in front of people?”
“You came to my workplace.”
He glanced around.
A flush crept up his neck.
“Outside.”
Emily opened the front door.
Cold November air hit them.
Ryan followed her beneath the awning.
Cars passed on the wet road.
Someone from the dental office next door was smoking beside a dumpster.
Ryan held out one of the coffees.
“Vanilla latte.”
Emily did not take it.
He lowered his hand.
“I barely slept.”
“Neither did I.”
“My mom is a wreck.”
Emily’s shoulders tightened.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make your mother the first thing we talk about.”
“I’m telling you what’s going on.”
“I know what’s going on.”
“You don’t.”
Ryan’s voice rose slightly.
He caught himself.
The smoker by the dumpster glanced over.
Ryan stepped closer.
“I went home and she was crying because she thinks you believe she hates you.”
Emily almost laughed.
“She told me I humiliated you.”
“When?”
“She left four messages.”
Ryan looked surprised.
Emily watched the surprise carefully.
He might actually not have known.
“She shouldn’t have done that.”
“No.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Emily looked through the clinic window.
Diane was pretending to organize magazines.
She was not convincing.
“The point is that yesterday morning felt normal to both of you.”
Ryan stared at her.
“The rag?”
“The rag.”
“It was stupid.”
“It was degrading.”
“I apologized.”
“After you called me insane.”
“I was angry.”
“So was I.”
Ryan shifted the coffees into one hand.
“Emily, my dad used to do stuff like that.”
The sentence stopped her.
Ryan looked toward the parking lot.
“He’d throw towels at Mom.”
Emily said nothing.
“It wasn’t some abuse thing.”
“I didn’t call it abuse.”
“Well, that’s where everyone’s taking this.”
“Who is everyone?”
Ryan hesitated.
“My mom.”
“Anyone else?”
His silence answered.
Emily’s pulse quickened.
“What did you tell people?”
“I didn’t tell people.”
“Ryan.”
“I talked to Jake.”
Jake Sullivan had been his best man.
“What did you tell Jake?”
“That you left.”
“And why?”
Ryan looked irritated again.
“I told him we had a stupid argument.”
“You told him about the rag?”
“Eventually.”
“What did he say?”
Ryan glanced away.
That was the first clue.
Emily waited.
“Ryan.”
“He said I screwed up.”
The second clue was quieter.
Emily folded her arms against the cold.
“Did he think it was funny?”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
For the first time since breakfast, someone from Ryan’s side of the world had apparently failed to agree with him.
It had changed something.
Not enough.
But something.
Ryan looked down at the coffee.
“I thought you’d laugh.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know, Emily.”
His frustration sounded genuine.
“It was something Dad used to do.”
“To your mother?”
“Sometimes.”
“And she laughed?”
“Sometimes she threw one back.”
Emily pictured Linda at the kitchen table, smiling calmly while the rag slid from Emily’s face.
Maybe Linda had once thrown one back.
Maybe she had once been twenty-eight and surprised too.
The possibility complicated nothing and everything.
“That doesn’t make it okay,” Emily said.
“I know.”
Ryan said it quietly.
Emily searched his face for the reflexive argument that usually followed.
None came.
For a moment, she wanted to believe this was enough.
He looked tired.
He looked sorry.
He looked like the man who had once driven forty minutes across town because she casually mentioned craving soup.
Then he said, “So can you come home tonight?”
The hope collapsed.
Emily looked at him.
“No.”
Ryan’s expression hardened almost instantly.
“What else do you need?”
“Time.”
“For what?”
“To decide whether I want this marriage.”
His mouth opened.
For several seconds no sound came out.
“You’re talking about divorce?”
“I’m talking about deciding.”
“After one day?”
“After a year.”
Ryan stepped back.
The coffees trembled slightly in the cardboard tray.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Emily’s next patient was due in twelve minutes.
She could feel the practical pressure of the clock, absurd and useful.
“It means the rag wasn’t the first thing.”
“What else have I done?”
She almost began listing everything.
The dress.
The phone.
The drinks with coworkers.
The nursing program.
The furniture.
Her passwords.
She stopped herself.
They had already argued about each one separately.
Ryan was asking for a list he could dismantle.
“I’m not doing this here.”
“You’re the one threatening divorce.”
“I said I need time.”
“You can’t just leave me in limbo.”
May you like
Emily stared at him.
“Yesterday morning you didn’t ask what I needed.”
