Chapter 6 #2
Cody,” he began. “I know he had that field school in Alberta this summer, but now the semester has started. Is he tied up
with teaching or research? Why isn’t he here?”
Oh, shit. This was decidedly not Thora’s job. It shouldn’t have been her job to tell this man about George’s death, and this
was almost as bad. Cody was Lee’s lifelong best friend, practically a brother, and Cody hadn’t reached out to him as his marriage
failed? Not that it was any business of hers whom Cody confided in anymore. Still, she was shocked he’d kept Lee in the dark.
On further thought, it made some sense. Lee was a notorious lone wolf. He’d literally gone years without talking to George,
after all. With Cody off the grid boning dinosaurs (as Mack called it) as much as possible, it was only natural their communication
had faltered.
Nonetheless, his ignorance stung. She didn’t wish Cody unhappiness, she truly didn’t, but she did wish he was sad enough that
he needed to confide in a friend. Maybe she’d misjudged their closeness. Or maybe losing her wasn’t that devastating.
Thora spat it out. “We’re divorced.”
Lee set down his mug and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thora, you’re going to give me a fucking heart attack.”
He said her name sternly, and oof, that sounded nice. Then he concentrated on her, narrowing his eyes and taking her all in.
“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”
Being under thirty and divorced was embarrassing, mostly. Plus, she didn’t want to speak ill of Cody to his best friend. “He’s
not a bad guy,” she offered.
“Of course he’s not a bad guy,” he agreed. “Probably a bad husband, though. Being married? Being seen as a stable, mature
man to the broader public? That was everything to him. Being a partner? Turning the focus on someone else for any length of
time? That I could believe he was bad at.”
In some alternate universe, she and Lee were actually friends. He could have let her know this critical observation before
she legally bound herself to Cody. Instead, she got Cody’s opinions of Lee, which, because of their long history, were unvarnished
and often harsh.
Cody often ragged on Lee’s inability to commit to a serious relationship. All of that “marriage material” at Townsend and
Lee couldn’t be bothered to make an effort?
And oh, how Cody mourned that his best friend couldn’t take his career seriously. Lee held a degree in architecture from a
revered institution, something that took a tremendous amount of work and expertise. But he lasted less than a year at the
first firm that hired him out of college.
Since then, he’d been painting houses and sleeping around. Not that there was anything wrong with either, Cody would quickly
point out, but he wanted more for Lee. Or he wanted Lee to want more for himself. Lee simply couldn’t fit the mold Cody had
built for him.
Thora could relate more than she cared to admit.
She had similar frustrations with herself.
She moved to New York to support Cody’s aspirations, which had a clearer trajectory than hers.
She took the job with Bryony Brooks, which did little to advance her own goals.
It was her only job offer lucrative enough for an apartment that also could house George.
When that plan fell through, Cody commandeered the second bedroom as his office. Once the lease was up, they could have moved
someplace smaller, cheaper. But he was so thankful for that office space, convincing Thora how superior it was to his windowless
dungeon in the bowels of the museum. So they kept the place. She kept the job.
She had aspirations to write, but working for Bryony Brooks took every last lick of her energy for years. She knew marriages
worked in seasons, and at the beginning of her marriage, she was fine with offering Cody a season of support. In some theoretical
future, he would be the one to support her.
Ultimately, as time went on, she lost faith that her season would ever come.
“It’s true,” Thora said. “I asked for the divorce. My old boss passed away, and in making plans for what came next, it became
clear Cody and I were on different paths.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. The statement was earnest enough that he didn’t need to fill the air with any explanations or qualifications.
The simple apology spoke for itself, the moment of silence after it felt profound.
She waved that profundity away. Everything was getting too heavy: the fear, the sincerity. “There aren’t any hard feelings.
At least not on my end.”
“He must be crushed,” Lee said. “I’m going to have to call him.”
Cody hadn’t been crushed. A little surprised, perhaps.
But he quickly acknowledged that he hadn’t been treating her like a proper romantic partner, and he sincerely apologized.
Somehow his breezy acceptance made it worse, like his failure to inform Lee.
She was little more than a botched science experiment to him, a fouled test tube to be poured down the drain.
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that,” she offered.
“No cell phone coverage, though. Is it okay if I plug the landline back in?”
Thora flashed Lee a horrified look before she realized it was a joke. His jokes were so quiet and sly that they took her,
a true broad in every sense of the word, by surprise.
She was glad; it diffused some tension she couldn’t quite explain. Knowing she’d dumped Lee’s closest friend had to shift
his opinion of her, and not in a good direction.
“In the light of the morning, with coffee, you’re still okay with me staying?”
Thora was right; he sensed the weirdness as well.
“As long as we can get some things straight,” she said.
“Sure.”
“I moved here to get serious about my writing. It’s why the phone line is disconnected. There’s no internet, no nothing. I
need to focus.”
“No problem. I’ll stay out of your hair. I want to hike to some of my favorite spots around here. Sit on the porch and remember
George. I can make sure I cook at different times than you, and I can, uh, pick a different time to shower.”
What happened to not mentioning that incident? Now she was thinking about his skin again, warmed by the shower. Now she was
imagining being in the shower with him, squeezed together in that little room. Slick and soapy, all tangled up. Stop that, she told herself.
“Maybe we can alternate cooking for each other. It’s a little silly to each cook for ourselves,” she replied.
“Why don’t I cook for you? You can spend more time writing.”
Thora sat back in her chair. No man had ever cooked for her. Her parents had a stereotypically gendered division of labor.
And Cody’s idea of a meal was the kind of food one could prepare over a weak propane camp stove in the middle of a downpour.
He had the palate of a garbage disposal and no interest in changing it. Thora wouldn’t dare eat food he cooked.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask. I offered. But I’ll have to come up with a new plan for tonight, because making tacos from the rotisserie
chicken is off the table.”
Thora nearly spat out her coffee. He was leaning right into the weird shit Juniper threw at them, making jokes as though it
wasn’t disturbing and potentially breaking the laws of science. She had never noticed this aspect of his personality, the
way he could settle things down. Given her propensity for histrionics, it was welcome.
“If you want to designate some hours when it’s okay to make noise, I could do some work on the house.”
“I’m not planning on painting anything,” she replied, knowing she couldn’t politely ask him to undo all his renovations in
the kitchen and Great Room. She’d end up ranting.
“I can do more than paint,” Lee said, so quietly, so confidently, that she felt it more than heard it. The reverberation settled
low in her belly.
Thora’s goal for his stay was to avoid shouting at him for what he did to Juniper and how it likely led to a terrible death
for George. It might make her feel better to scream at him. It also might make her feel worse. Everyone was telling she was