Chapter 9 Fritz Zwicky
Fritz Zwicky
JAMIE
It got easier as time passed.
A little.
The first month was the hardest. I pulled out the ‘no-interpersonal relationships’ policy on several occasions to remind myself how big these stakes were.
I printed it off. Underlined it. It got dog-eared.
And I inspected my gray hair in the mirror; the cracks and spots on my skin. Reminded myself no amount of workouts or vegetables could change the fact I was on the downward slope of my life compared to Sarah.
It got easier.
Of course, there were moments where things threatened to fall apart.
Like early on, Sarah burst into laughter in a meeting.
Her expression lit up, and it felt like a hot lance had wedged itself between my ribs.
Or she’d bring up something simple but brilliant that would save us weeks of work and several thousand dollars.
Watching her take down the idiots in this business was nothing short of majestic: contractors who asked to speak to her manager; old boys who looked at her chest instead of her face.
She’d cut them so quick it took them a minute to understand what had happened.
One time some asshole made an off-color joke on a job site; his eyes on her to see what he could get away with.
I opened my mouth to tell him to watch his, but she spoke first.
“Sorry, I don’t understand why that was funny?” Sarah asked innocently.
The man tried explaining himself, but of course explaining a joke is never funny, and when he got flustered, she whispered to me—loud enough he could hear—“I heard little guys get like this when they’re tired. He must need a nap.”
Every new thing I learned about her was terrible, because I found myself appreciating her as a new person, separate from the woman I’d met that first night.
Of course, after a while, I got used to Sarah saying brilliant things.
I got used to the fact that she was smart and funny, and everyone loved her.
I got over learning small details against my will, like how she never finished the last few sips of her coffee because she didn’t like it when it got cold.
Her Secret Santa—who may or may not have rigged the game to make sure he got her name—gave her a top of the line heated coffee mug so it never got cold.
Still, she always threw out the last few sips, declaring them not as good as the rest. I fucking loved how stubborn she was.
How her favorite color to wear was either hot pink in small doses or mustard yellow, but only on shirts and sweaters.
And I learned how much she loved dogs. The goofier-looking the better. (I liked to remind myself of that one in particular as I stroked Stu’s grumpy chin as he lay on my chest at home.)
Once, when several of us were heading out on foot from the office to a nearby job site, a woman walking a three-legged dog passed us on the sidewalk. Sarah froze, then whipped around to look after them.
Her hand trembled around her travel coffee mug so intensely I was worried she was going to drop it.
Then she did. It tipped from her wobbling fingers and I had to reach over and catch it before it fell from her hand.
Of course, this violated my no-touching-Sarah rule, since the tips of our fingers brushed. Alarm bells clanged through me.
Sarah sucked in a breath at the contact, seeming to come back to herself.
I jerked my hand away. “You were going to lose the coffee,” I muttered.
“Oh.” She looked up at me with glassy eyes as she took it back. “Thank you.”
“You okay?”
She nodded. Then said, “Actually, no. That dog… she looked a lot like my old one, Fritz.” She laughed, but it died quickly. “That dog was much prettier, but mine…she was so sweet.”
We both looked out at the dog, a full block away now.
I knew about the pain of losing a beloved dog.
Actually, I knew about the pain of having a dog around that had been someone else’s beloved dog, after they were gone.
My chest still felt like it was rupturing when I thought about the way Kevin’s dog had sat at the door for weeks after he was gone, as if his beloved best friend would walk in at any moment.
It’s why I was a cat dad now. Cats were ambivalent.
I could keel over in my living room and Stu would probably swat me a few times before walking right over me, pissed off, because now who was going to get him dinner?
“Did you lose her?” I asked, as gently as I could.
“In a way,” Sarah said as we started walking again. “But she didn’t die.”
The group was well ahead of us now.
I frowned.
“My husband—ex-husband—” Sarah brought a hand to her collarbone the way she sometimes did when she was upset or embarrassed.
I tried not to stare as her fingertips grazed across the soft dip under her throat.
“We’d only had her a little while” she said. “But one day, only a couple of weeks after we’d…decided to split, I came home from work and she was gone.”
My stomach tightened. Somehow, I felt like this wasn’t a case of the dog running away. But I bit my tongue, wanting to give her space to share as she wanted.
“I named her Fritz,” Sarah said. “After Fritz Zwicky. He was my dad’s favorite astronomer.” She laughed softly. “I think he was his favorite because it was a fun name to say. Fritz Zwicky.”
Sarah’s smile fell away as she cut a glance to me. Astronomy was one of those topics we avoided.
“I’ve heard of him,” I said. I sometimes broke my own rules around Sarah. “Supernovas, right?” Okay, lots of times.
Sarah smiled, relaxing again. “And dark matter.”
“How could I forget?” I smiled back. This was perhaps not the wisest idea. But as always happened when I was with her, I couldn’t remember why I should care.
“Anyway, that’s part of why I loved Fritz so much,” Sarah continued.
“Ted and I had been living kind of separate lives toward the end, and it’s silly, I know.
Ridiculous, really.” Her hand went to her collarbone again.
“But I felt like my dad sent her to me. As a place to put all that unspent love, right when I needed it.”
My chest fucking hurt to hear that. “What happened?” I asked, unable to stop myself now, already dreading the answer.
Sarah met my eyes, her lips a little askance. “He gave her away.” Her hand dropped to her side. “I came home and she was gone. All of her stuff, too. He left no trace she was ever there.”
I stopped. All I could see was fucking red.
“The worst part,” she said, stopping as well, but not noticing my hands had gathered into fists, “is that Ted acted like he’d done me a favor.
Said he thought she would be too much for me to deal with given ‘everything going on’.
” She swallowed, looking in the direction of the dog, who was tiny now in the distance.
“But she was the only thing keeping me together.”
I forced my voice to keep calm and much lighter than the thunderous anger rolling through my veins. “So where’s he buried?”
That got a laugh out of her. One that warmed my chest. Though to be fair it was a match next to the raging bonfire of hostility I felt for that piece of shit. He essentially dognapped Sarah’s fucking emotional support animal.
“Yeah. I get ragey when I think about it now,” she said, obviously seeing my poorly-tamped-down expression. “But back then… I was just heartbroken.” Her voice went almost crackly on that word.
“Where did he take her?” I asked. “Is there any chance of getting her back?”
She shook her head. “No. He gave the dog to a colleague. I guess his brother owned a farm. They had a kid, and the boy apparently fell in love with her at first sight, just like I did. I would never inflict the pain I felt on anyone else. Least of all a child.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“That gave me a little closure, at least.”
We looked back toward the dog, but it was gone now too.
I didn’t say what I was thinking—that the farm thing could be a story this guy had made up. He’d probably dropped her dog off at the pound. But I didn’t need to. I could see from her expression there was no real closure there.
Fucking asshole.
As we rejoined the rest of the group a few minutes later, I couldn’t help wishing I could have intervened somehow.
Reached back in time and stopped the guy from doing what he’d done.
Preferably by knocking his teeth in. I’d do it for the dog, but also for fucking it up with Sarah.
Only an absolute fuckwad with shit for brains would squander a chance with Sarah Cooper.
Though he very clearly didn’t deserve her anyway. Not by a long fucking shot.