Chương 6
“What hospital?”
She told me.
I memorized the name without writing it down.
Then I walked back across the street alone.
Back upstairs, I sat at my desk without opening the spreadsheet waiting on my screen.
Elena watched me for maybe thirty seconds before rolling her chair over.
“You look like somebody just offered you either a kidney or a subpoena.”
“My sister flew in from Chicago.”
“The suitcase woman?”
I nodded.
Elena glanced toward the elevators.
“She okay?”
“No.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Great.”
She stood.
“Go home.”
“I have the vendor forecast.”
“Tom can finish it.”
“Tom thinks percentages are a liberal conspiracy.”
“Then today he learns.”
I almost argued.
Instead, I closed my laptop.
Elena leaned against my desk.
“You don’t owe me details, but if this is family emergency territory, take tomorrow too.”
“I don’t know if it’s an emergency.”
“That sentence usually means it is.”
I left before I could change my mind.
Outside, the afternoon had turned gray and damp.
Lily was gone from the coffee shop.
For a second, I felt relieved.
Then I noticed her sitting on a bench beneath the awning of a pharmacy across the street, suitcase beside her, staring at her phone.
She hadn’t seen me.
I could have walked the other direction.
I nearly did.
Then she looked up.
Neither of us smiled.
“You’re still here.”
“My flight’s tomorrow morning.”
“Where are you staying?”
She gave a small shrug.
“I was looking.”
“You came without a hotel?”
“I bought the ticket last night.”
“That sounds like you.”
“Mom says the same thing.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
That earned the faintest smile.
We stood there while traffic hissed through wet pavement.
Finally I said, “Claire has a spare room.”
Lily blinked.
“Who’s Claire?”
“My girlfriend.”
Her expression changed before she could hide it.
Surprise first.
Then something almost like hurt.
“You have a girlfriend?”
“For a year and a half.”
“Oh.”
There were probably twenty questions behind that one syllable.
She asked none of them.
“I can find a hotel.”
“You probably should.”
“Okay.”
I looked at her suitcase.
Then at the rain.
“Or you can stay with us tonight.”
She stared at me.
“One night.”
“I heard you.”
“And this doesn’t mean anything.”
“I heard that too.”
I texted Claire.
She responded in less than a minute.
Of course.
Then another message followed.
Do we own enough towels for family trauma?
I showed Lily.
She laughed once, unexpectedly.
“I think I like her.”
“You haven’t met her.”
“I like the towel question.”
Claire arrived home before we did because Lily insisted on stopping at a drugstore for toothpaste even though I told her we had extra.
“That’s your toothpaste,” she said.
“It came in a three-pack.”
“Still weird.”
“You flew across the country without booking a hotel, but sharing unopened toothpaste is where you establish boundaries?”
She bought her own.
At the apartment, Claire greeted her with the calm friendliness she used with nervous parents at school.
No hugs.
No performance.
Just, “Hi, I’m Claire,” and an offer of tea.
Lily looked around the living room while I put her suitcase beside the couch.
Her eyes stopped on a framed photograph above the bookshelf.
It was one I had taken at Cannon Beach the previous winter.
“You took that?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re good.”
“I’m okay.”
“She’s lying,” Claire called from the kitchen.
“He won a local contest.”
“It was a coffee-shop contest.”
“There were other humans involved.”
Lily looked at me again.
There was something in her face I couldn’t read.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lily.”
She rubbed her thumb along the seam of her coat pocket.
“It’s just strange.”
“What is?”
“You have all this.”
I looked around.
A couch Malcolm had helped assemble.
Three plants Claire kept alive.
A stack of photography books.
A shoe rack perpetually missing one shoe.
It didn’t look like “all this.”
“It looks like your life,” Lily said.
The words came out quietly.
“I guess it is.”
She nodded.
Then she went to the bathroom and stayed there long enough that Claire raised an eyebrow.
“She crying?”
“Probably.”
“You want me to check?”
“No.”
“You?”
“No.”
Claire handed me a mug.
“You two are genetically committed to avoidance.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
Dinner was takeout Thai food.
Lily talked mostly to Claire.
She asked about the library, about Portland, about whether I still hated mushrooms.
“I never hated mushrooms.”
“You used to pick them off pizza and hide them under your napkin.”
“I was nine.”
“You did it at twenty-three.”
Claire looked delighted.
“This is useful information.”
“Do not encourage her.”
For fifteen minutes, we almost behaved like siblings who had simply gone too long between visits.
Then Lily’s phone lit up on the table.
Mom.
She silenced it.
It rang again.
Josh.
She silenced that too.
Claire looked at me but said nothing.
The third call was from Mom again.
Lily pushed her chair back.
“I should take this.”
She stepped onto the balcony.
Through the glass, I watched her press one hand over her other ear.
Her posture changed almost immediately.
She straightened.
Then bent forward slightly.
Claire kept eating.
“What?”
I asked.
“I’m not looking.”
“You’re absolutely looking.”
“I’m observing reflections.”
“You’re terrible.”
“Yes.”
Lily came back inside two minutes later.
Her face had gone pale.
“What happened?”
“Dad’s awake.”
I waited.
“He asked for you again.”
I put down my fork.
Lily sat.
“Mom told him I found you.”
Anger came fast enough that my chair scraped backward.
“You told her?”
“No.”
“She guessed because I wasn’t answering.”
“You should’ve lied.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
Claire stood and gathered the food containers.
Neither of us acknowledged that she was giving us room.
Lily’s voice tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“Now he thinks I’m coming.”
“I didn’t tell him that.”
“Does Mom?”
“No.”
“Josh?”
“No.”
I paced toward the window.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want contact.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
May you like
“I’m trying to.”
“You keep saying that like trying fixes anything.”
