Chapter iv
iv
THE NEXT MORNING, I TEXTED KATE WHILE I WAS on the subway to work: Lunch still good today?
Looking forward , she wrote back. Need to discuss! I knew she was commuting, too, on a Metro-North train from Stamford, Connecticut. We’d made this lunch date because of a new job she’d just had a third-round interview for that she wanted my opinion on.
Looking forward too , I said.
Whenever I was with Kate, just the two of us, a part of me felt like I was twenty-two again, living with her in that amazing apartment her parents rented to us on the Upper East Side. Or sometimes I felt like I was fourteen and we were at the Westport Plaza Shopping Mall, trying to figure out which lip gloss colors looked best with our skin tones. Or sometimes even like we were five, having just met in kindergarten and squealing because we both were wearing the same T-shirt with Rainbow Brite on it. Kate has known so many versions of me, and I have known so many versions of her.
At noon, I layered on my winter coat and my trendy earmuffs and walked over to Iris, a newish restaurant halfway between our offices.
Before I could even take off my earmuffs, Kate came in, her pink cheeks almost the same blush color as her long cashmere coat.
“Iris is someone,” Kate said when we sat down. “From history or Greek myths or something. Not just a flower, right?”
“She’s the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology,” I answered. “And the personification of the rainbow. I read somewhere that there’s a theory Siri, on our phones, is named after her. Iris backward.”
“Of course you would know that,” Kate said, smiling at me as she opened the menu.
Remember when you called me a Pegasus, Gabe? You said when you were with me, I carried you away from the pain. From the ugliness. I still connect Greek mythology to you, though I don’t know if we ever talked about Iris. The thought of you tugged at my heart.
“So tell me about this job,” I said to Kate, opening my menu. “Have you made your decision yet?”
“No,” Kate said. “And when I called Liz, she said I shouldn’t stress, and that the decision will make itself. My sister is so infuriating sometimes. She’s basically saying all my hours of thinking and debating and weighing mean nothing.” She closed her menu. “We’re doing the express lunch, right?” she said, referring to the section that came with mezze platters as an appetizer. “I’m hav ing the ancient grain bowl. With a glass of the house white.”
“That sounds good. Me too,” I said, closing my menu as well. After the waiter took our order, I could tell she was still irritated by Liz’s words. “I think,” I said to Kate, “that what Liz meant was that decisions often become clear when they have to. Like, you may have to do all this thinking, but at some point, the decision will make itself known. It’s like how Darren and I tried for more than a year to keep our marriage together after Sammy was born, but we got to a point where we knew it just wasn’t going to work. It took us all those conversations, all that couples therapy to get to that place, but then the answer presented itself. It wasn’t easy, but at some point, the next step became apparent.”
“Hmm,” Kate said, thinking that over. It gave me a moment to remember that day, eight years ago, when Darren told me he was done. The tangle of emotions I’d felt. The tangle of emotions I still feel when I think about him, about our divorce, about what led to it.
I took a sip of water in an attempt to rinse the memories from my mind, to bring myself back to the present. “How are you on the decision?” I asked Kate.
She took a breath.
“Be honest,” I said. “With me. And with yourself.”
She took another breath. I waited.
“I want to stay at my firm, but I feel like I should take this opportunity. I like where I am, though. I like who I work with. I like my job. I’m comfortable and happy here.”
“There you go,” I told her. “The decision just made itself.”
She laughed. “I’ll have to think about that,” she said, and then added, “So what’s going on with you? How was your date with what’s-his-name, that guy you met in the grocery store in front of the cheddar bunnies last month?”
I made a face. “He was obsessed with mass transit.”
“That doesn’t necessarily sound bad,” Kate said as our mezze plates arrived.
“Believe me, it was,” I said, picking up a triangle of pita.
“You have to give these guys a chance, Lu,” Kate said as she reached for a triangle, too. “How many first dates have you gone on in the past seven-plus years?”
I shrugged; the answer was probably somewhere around twenty.
“Really the question is,” she said, “how many second dates have you been on?”
“Zero,” I said, carefully spreading whipped feta on my pita. “But a woman doesn’t need a man to be happy.”
“I agree,” Kate said, “but are you alone because that’s what makes you happy, or because your heart is still so filled with Gabriel that there isn’t room for anyone else? Because you don’t want there to be room for anyone else?”
I didn’t answer. I don’t know if Kate even expected me to. The truth was, I had been holding myself together so tightly, that I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let anyone in. If I did, I was afraid I might fall apart. Again. Like I did after Sammy was born, after you died. But I didn’t want to get into that, into her telling me I was strong, and me knowing, explaining, insisting, I wasn’t. Instead, I said to her, “Eric Weiss called me yesterday. He wants to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Gabe’s death. And while I was looking for some image files he needs, I found this.” I pulled the address out of the credit card slot in the back of my phone case. “Why do you think Gabe kept it? Who do you think the boy is?”
Kate took the paper and looked at it, then handed it back to me. “You’re going to get mad if I tell you what I think,” she said.
“Tell me anyway,” I said, wondering what her theory might be.
I wasn’t expecting what she said next.
“I don’t think it matters, Lucy,” she said as kindly as she could. “I think you have to let him go.”
But I couldn’t, Gabe. I couldn’t let you go, not then. Not yet.