27
M C showed up at the Green Hills train station early on New Year’s Day.
There was a weirdly un-momentous quality to the morning.
Conrad picked her up. She didn’t expect them to have some big heart-to-heart.
For once, that wasn’t even what she wanted.
They shoveled the back patio together, watched three straight hours of Arrested Development , and got Chinese for dinner.
Looking at their fortune cookies would’ve been unbearable.
So they threw them out, then fished them from the trash can in a fit of paranoia and stowed them in the back of the pantry for better times.
Gabby was still staying at her parents’ house.
MC didn’t go back to the city the next day, or the day after.
She had no plan. All she knew was that she wouldn’t survive seeing Joe on the street, or, more likely, having him barge in on her again in her apartment.
Conrad tolerated her company without complaint, despite their argument on Christmas.
She didn’t even need to apologize, which she appreciated.
Work was mercifully slow. She found herself loafing around the house, talking through Conrad’s post-break plan to deal with Jae, which involved meeting at a coffee shop to apologize and commit to finishing out the school year as professionally as possible.
As for Gabby, all he could do was wait for her to respond to the daily handwritten letters he dropped off in her parents’ mailbox, begging her to take him back.
MC wondered if she could figure out a similar approach to Nora, who seemed to have made it her business to become a ghost, never so much as appearing on her porch or at her window. But writing felt like a tainted medium at that point. And anyway, her mailbox was always overflowing now.
MC was experiencing some of the same inundation on the digital end, though she’d decided after New Year’s Eve to delegate the management of her inbox to Joe, who’d taken it over with uncharacteristic alacrity.
So she laid low, biding her time.
One week turned into two, then three, MC helping out around the house as Conrad got back in the swing of the second half of the school year.
Coffee with Jae had gone as well as could’ve been hoped for.
Both of them were eager to put the affair behind them and move on.
But Gabby’s absence still hung over the place, haunting them all.
So when MC ran into her at the grocery store one random Thursday evening in late January, she froze up. White-knuckled the handle of her cart.
Gabby looked stunned at first. Then her eyes narrowed.
MC braced herself.
“Oh, just come over here,” Gabby muttered. She stared down at a yogurt that contained, for some reason, candy.
“Hi,” MC said, bowing her head like a dog that still expected to be sent to the crate. “How are you?”
“Incredibly bad.” Gabby’s expression was dark, but she looked more put together than MC would’ve expected. Thick gold hoops dangled from her ears, and she had a big wool scarf on, her peacoat padded out with a chunky sweater over her swollen belly. “You?”
“Same.”
“Really?” She gave MC an up-and-down—the sneakers smeared with dirt and grit, the old cargo pants hanging loose from her waist. She’d shed a few pounds on account of her appetite being spoiled by low-grade depression.
And then there were the circles under eyes, the desperate state of her hair.
“I thought your article for Joe was a big hit.”
“Yeah, well, it kind of ruined our friendship. Along with everything else. So.”
“At least it was good.”
MC held her breath. “You read it?”
“Of course I did. Right after I read Nora’s book.” Gabby shrugged. “It’s not every day I get to feature in a rom-com and a viral exposé.”
MC blushed.
“You know, when you came out to me, I thought it was this big moment in our friendship.” Gabby crossed her arms. “But I guess you had mixed motivations.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was convinced you and Nora were destined to be together. But if you’d been a little more direct with me about your actual feelings, I would’ve made out with you at least once.”
MC looked up in amazement. Gabby’s old grin had returned.
“Conrad told me you only overheard him fighting with Jae the day before Christmas Eve,” she added. “And that you said right away he should come clean to me. So I guess I can’t be too pissed at you for that.”
MC bowed her head anyway. “I did think something was going on with him even before then. But I didn’t want to push it.”
“It’s fine. I know you’ve always respected his privacy.”
“I wish I could say that’s what it was about. But it was more being scared to talk to him in general.”
“It still wasn’t your job to police his bullshit.”
“No, but—”
“It might’ve been your job to stay out of Nora’s business, though.” Gabby raised an eyebrow. “As opposed to coming out here and taking advantage of her.”
“I know. I feel terrible about it.”
“You should.”
MC bit her lip. “Joe told me he was going to lose his job if he didn’t have a big story.”
“How did you not see that it was his problem, not yours?”
“I just didn’t feel like there was a difference.
We’ve always done everything for each other.
Especially after we left Green Hills.” MC took a breath.
“But it was my choice to let go of everything I had here. And that’s what I feel the worst about.
Cutting my brother off, being weird with you, hanging on to all this shit from high school.
” Her voice wavered, but she managed to steady it again. “Anyway. I’m extremely sorry.”
Gabby seemed to mull this over, squeezing the yogurt cup in her hand. MC was sure she was going to say something about how apologies were ultimately meaningless, how cowardice had a cost, and it could never be repaid.
But instead, she said, “Okay.” And rubbed MC’s shoulder. “Thank you for that.”
“Of course.”
Gabby threw the yogurt in her cart and leaned her elbows on the handle, looking like she was about to head off to the next aisle.
MC cleared her throat and said, “By the way, Conrad is missing you pretty bad.” She smoothed the front of her ski jacket.
“I know he’s the last person you want to hear about.
And I’d never expect you to feel sympathy for him, because he doesn’t deserve it.
But he’s still my brother. I know all he wants is to see you again. Even just once.”
“Yeah, I’ve gotten that impression from his attempts to be pen pals.”
“We didn’t have great models of spousal behavior growing up.”
“That sounds a lot like an excuse.”
“It’s just... context.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s really nice to see you. Even if the circumstances are bad.” A deep breath. “I’m still excited to be an aunt.”
Gabby smiled again. “I’m excited for you too.”
She started to walk off.
“Tell Conrad he can call me,” she said over her shoulder. “I just scheduled the anatomy exam.”
When Gabby had turned down the pasta aisle, MC pumped her fist in the air, jogged her cart down the empty dairy section, and hopped on the bottom rack, cruising along like she was ten years old again.
After she’d unloaded the groceries at home, she wandered out into the darkness, up to the picket fence between her house and Nora’s. There was a light on in the kitchen.
For once, Nora was at the window, looking down at something. Probably the dishes.
Maybe it wasn’t a matter of MC punishing herself forever. Maybe it was just a matter of making herself known, even if it caused discomfort.
She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: “Do you know how the Byzantines punished criminals?”
Nora looked up, startled, then flashed her middle finger.
“They hung them upside down and cut them in half!”
Nora opened the window. “That’s disgusting!” she said, before closing the window again and walking away.
MC trudged back in the darkness, smiling.