Chapter 43
Ilena
Monday Afternoon
Four Days After the Outing
Three peppermint teas and two scones, apparently that’s Ilena’s limit. She wraps the third untouched cranberry and orange
pastry in a napkin, tips the young girl behind the counter for letting her commandeer the table, and exits into air radiating
the perfect amount of summer heat.
She never went to AIM. The police wanted to question her, and she didn’t show. Entirely out of character, and yet, Ilena feels
fine. Good, even. She wanders down Mass. Ave. toward Boston. There was a time she’d have walked all the way in, to Newbury
Street and the Boston Public Garden, even to the Seaport. She wouldn’t do it now with her swollen belly and even more swollen
ankles. Though part of her feels like she could, like maybe it’d be good for her. She doubts Felix would agree. Would Jonah?
The thought of how Jonah would treat a pregnant Ilena causes her to halt in the middle of the sidewalk. A guy with a backpack
the size of a small house knocks into her, sending her off-balance.
“What a loser,” a young woman in leggings and a sports bra says. “Are you okay? Come inside, let me get you a water.”
Ilena nods, meaning she’s fine, but the young woman takes it as agreement to the second part and ushers her inside a warmly
lit yoga studio.
“Sit, sit,” the young woman says, lowering Ilena into a beanbag chair she’ll never get out of by herself.
“Thank you, but really, this isn’t necessary.”
The woman brings her a glass tumbler of water that those three teas left no room for.
“Necessary, maybe not. But it makes me happy.” She coils her long hair into a messy bun atop her head. “And happiness should
be our journey, shouldn’t it?” She points to the AIM logo on the window.
“Are you affiliated?” Ilena asks.
“Brand ambassador!” She waves to the check-in counter and the shelves of AIM merchandise beside it. “Certified by Ella—isn’t
she just the best?”
Ilena nods absently, not really knowing Ella enough to determine that here or at home. She stares at the swag, wondering which
of them approved the idea of “brand ambassadors.” She wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t cede that level of control, allowing the
AIM brand to be associated with people and places that could behave in ways that would reflect poorly on the company.
Your need to control everything has no end.
She squeezes her eyes shut, but Jonah’s indictment remains. She’s careful. She’s cautious. She does the right thing. Why isn’t
that okay?
The sliding barn door across from her opens, and heat pours out.
“Excuse me,” the young woman says, pushing the water into Ilena’s hand.
“But I don’t—”
A string of women, mostly young, a few older—well, her age—and a couple of men drenched in sweat stream into the small entryway,
slipping their shoes on, chatting about getting drinks or returning to work or recommending their latest binge-watch. A few
pull out their phones, and Ilena hears the familiar tone of someone using “How Wide’s My Smile.”
She presses her feet to the shiny wood floor, trying to haul herself out, but she’s stuck. And she’s peed herself. Just a
little. “Excuse—”
Another ding.
And another.
And three young women move to the stack of hoodies along the wall.
“Fifteen percent off if you buy it here,” the woman who helped Ilena says. She turns to give her a wink, and Ilena waves,
gesturing for help, but the girl simply waves back.
Perfect. Ilena drinks the water and slumps into the chair for the rest of her life. She checks her phone, expecting a question from
Aubrey or a scolding from Mallory, but the only new text is from her mother:
A girl! Your sister and I are so pleased. Felix couldn’t wait. Such a catch!
At least her mother likes one of her husbands.
Another text comes in, this one a photograph of her mom holding a onesie with a cupcake on it.
Ilena draws in a sharp breath. Does her mother not remember? Did her father not do that here? Bring them special cupcakes
for every occasion? Or did he, and her mother’s too damn self-absorbed to care?
Her mother couldn’t forgive—her father, Ilena, anyone.
A wrong had no way to become anything but more wrong in her mother’s mind.
She relished her anger. She spent so much time being offended by what other people did that she became mean and bitter.
Even if her mother had wanted to find love again, who would want to find love with her?
Yet here she is, taking a picture with a onesie. Tall and trim with silver hair and a smile Ilena doesn’t recognize. Her mother
doesn’t smile.
But this Ilena’s mother does. It’s like trying to reconcile something as preposterous as unicorns being real, or having never met
Mallory, or Ilena being a mom. She lays one hand atop her belly. If her mother smiles here, what might that mean of her dad?
Ilena opens the browser on her phone and searches for her father’s name. It pops up on some social media site she’s never
heard of, but that she apparently has an account on. The site redirects to an app where she’s already logged in, and he’s
listed as a friend. The last post on his page is from twelve years ago, from before her sister would have graduated from college,
from before that photograph of just the three of them in the nursery was taken.
You will be missed.
Too soon.
I can still hear your laugh.
That one was written by her mother.
You would have been the best grandfather.
And this one by her.
All the air leaves her lungs. She hasn’t seen her father in person in years, but this, this is .
. . this is like nothing she has ever known.
A heat builds behind her eyes as she scans the photos on her account.
Her family, the four of them, in front of the John Harvard statue on what looks to be Ilena’s college graduation, her mom and dad wearing “Mr.” and “Mrs.” tiaras celebrating some milestone
anniversary, and Ilena and her sister, hugging in wool hats and ice skates on Frog Pond in Boston Common.
There are also photos of Ilena and Mallory, of Aubrey, of Ilena and Felix, a few interspersed of her and Felix and James.
In them, Felix looks exactly the way she feels: in love with someone who isn’t their spouse.
An ache deep in her chest makes it hard to breathe. The one person—the only person—she wants to share all of this with won’t
understand why. She searches his name and finds him in the same place she found him twenty-one years ago: at MIT.
Jonah Gelding, associate professor, physics department.
“Excuse me!” Ilena drops her phone into her purse and waves both hands above her head. “Can someone get me out of this goddamn
thing?”
Ilena catches her breath outside the physics building, searching for someone to let her in. She doesn’t have a student or
faculty ID or an entry card, but she has the next best thing. She taps her stomach and waits. Once inside, thanks to a student
more concerned with chivalry than security, she heads for the directory.
Jonah Gelding.
She traces a finger over the letters. A professor. All those nights sitting cross-legged on his bed, quizzing him before the
MCATs, vivid in her mind. Maybe he had someone else here, listening to his dissertation.
She wanders down the maze of hallways until she reaches his office door.
Her hand rises to smooth her hair, thinking he hasn’t seen her with hair this long in years, which she immediately realizes is silly.
She doesn’t know if this Jonah has ever seen her.
She stretches her neck to get a glimpse of him.
She steadies her breath and knocks.
“Office hours are over. Ergo, I’m still here, so enter.” He closes the filing cabinet and faces her. “Oh, sorry. I thought
you were a student.”
Her heartbeat pounds her temples, and she’s swept up by a profound sense of loss. “Not for a long time.”
“Wait, don’t tell me.” He presses a finger to his lips. “Mallory Latham!”
Ilena draws back. “Uh, no, it’s—”
“Ilena Cohen. Just having a goof.” He grins and that sense of loss ebbs, for just a moment, replaced with longing, desire.
“I’ve been following you. Not literally. Online. Though technically that could still veer into stalker category.”
She hovers in the doorway.
“I assure you it doesn’t.” He rushes to his guest chair to remove stacks of books and papers and a second cardigan, as he’s
already wearing one, completely the professor cliché. “Please, sit. Your first, right?”
She manages a nod.
“All over the news, you two, and AIM. I like to impress my friends by saying ‘I knew them when.’ After that first MIT-Harvard
mixer, I knew you two would take over the world.”
“What happened?” The words tumble out, but what she really wants to ask is if they met here, why aren’t they together? Were
they ever? And suddenly she fully understands what Aubrey’s been going through. The loss, the deep sense of loneliness, the
need to know what’s right and what’s wrong and what role she played in all of it.
“Well,” he says, “you two took over the world, that’s what.”
His eyes meet hers and she can’t understand how they can see her now but not have seen everything she’s seen, not know everything
she knows, the compass rose clock, and Plum Island, and the bottle of the year, and the day he asked her for a divorce and
she said yes.
She’d called his bluff. And he’d let her.
The life drains out of her, and she presses her elbows to her thighs, cradling her head in her hands.
“Do you need an ambulance?” She feels him at her side. “Is it the baby? Are you—”
“I’m fine. She’s fine.”
“You’re having a girl? I always wanted a girl.”
He never told her that.
Ilena blinks away the moisture in her eyes, embarrassed in a way she hasn’t been around Jonah since she was eighteen years
old. He smiles warily, nervously running his hand through his hair, still wavy but with less gray. Perhaps because he’s a
professor and not a doctor. Perhaps because he’s not married to her.