2
MagnaCare was a single-story brick building with curtains in every window.
If you didn’t see the sign—SKILLED NURSING AND REHABILITATION—you might have mistaken it for a government office, or a nondenominational church, or maybe even a motel.
Two old-fashioned lights burned on lampposts near the front entrance, and beyond the double doors, a faint grayish patch suggested activity deeper in the building.
But at this hour, most of the windows were dark, and the parking lot was nearly empty.
Noah’s Mini Cooper was parked in back.
I parked next to him. I sat in my truck.
The engine rumbled, and the faint vibrations in the steering wheel made me aware of the ache in my hands.
I kept trying to think. Kept trying to work my way through it.
But my head was this big red emptiness, and all I could do was sit there, clutching the steering wheel.
Finally, it was like something let go of me. I took a deeper breath. The world came into focus. I was staring at an expanse of brick wall picked out by the headlights. A strip of winter-dead grass. A sidewalk where someone had spray-painted the uneven edges yellow because they were a fall hazard.
The doors would be locked.
They wouldn’t let me inside.
I took out my phone and called.
It went to voicemail, of course. Not that Noah had bothered to record a message—it was the default mailbox. I didn’t bother leaving a message.
The next call went to MagnaCare. It rang several times before a tired-sounding woman answered.
“I need to speak to Noah Reynolds,” I said. “This is his father. It’s a family emergency.”
“Oh honey,” the woman said. “One second.”
It wasn’t one second. It was closer to thirty. I counted each and every one of them. Now that my head was clear, I felt like I was moving in slow-motion, each second stretched out until it snapped, and then the next one began.
“Dad?” Noah said.
“We’re still fucking married?”
It was supposed to come out as a question. It started as a question. By the end, it was a shout.
The silence had a trembling quality that might have been Noah or might have been me. It was like I’d brushed a cymbal.
“I didn’t—” Noah’s voice sounded small. And then, trying for brusqueness, “I’m at work. I can’t talk about this right now.”
“If you hang up on me, I am going to go ape-shit on this fucking tampon you call a car. Get your ass out here right fucking now.”
Noah’s silence lasted longer this time. Then he muttered, “I need a few minutes. Try to act like a human being until I get out there.”
The call disconnected.
My knuckles throbbed. I had to force myself to loosen each finger.
It was closer to ten minutes—probably because Noah was hoping if he waited long enough, I’d give up and go away.
But finally a fire door on the back of the building opened.
He was just a silhouette, but I knew who it was.
He shaded one hand, as though he might be able to see past the headlights and into the truck.
And then he gave a little wave, and I realized he wanted me to go inside.
Probably so there’d be plenty of witnesses when I murdered him.
I killed the engine. I got out of the truck.
I didn’t even feel my feet hit the ground; everything was gone from the knees down, and for the first few steps, my balance felt off.
I didn’t fall or anything, but it was like someone else was walking.
Someone else was moving. And I wasn’t doing any of it, because I was falling deeper and deeper into the big red emptiness inside my head.
When I got closer, Noah beat it backward, and I had to catch the door to keep it from falling shut.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light as I stepped inside.
We stood in what looked like the back of a commercial kitchen.
A six-burner range. A walk-in deep freeze.
Only a single strip of fluorescents glowed overhead, probably safety lights that never went off, and they left a dull smear along the linoleum, across the battered pots and pans, over the stainless steel of appliances and countertops.
Noah.
The same white-blond hair. The same undercut.
The same fucking lip gloss—bubblegum pink.
That moment of recognition was so disorienting that I almost forgot how angry I was.
Enough makeup that you couldn’t miss the fact that he was wearing it.
One earring—a single pearl that, knowing Noah, was probably real.
He’d lost weight; he’d always been petite, and now, in the baggy scrubs, he looked almost frail.
He twisted at the waist to glance over his shoulder, as though he’d heard something. He still had a great ass.
“Before you—” he began as he turned back.
“Be quiet.” I drew a deep breath through my nose. I let it out again. “This is some kind of mistake.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You didn’t tell your dad, and so he didn’t tell the lawyer.”
Noah tried to hold my gaze. But he slipped, and he cut his eyes away.
“This is one big misunderstanding,” I said. “Tell me that’s what this is.”
He folded his arms across his chest, and it made him look even smaller.
“Noah!”
“I don’t know what you want me to say!”
“I just fucking told you what I want you to say!”
Now his gaze snapped back to me. “Stop yelling.” It came out as barely more than a whisper. “There are people here who need their rest.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I’m real fucking worried about Grandma Gladys getting a full night’s sleep.”
“Howie!” It came out like a whipcrack—not loud, but with a lot of sting behind it.
I waited. But Noah just stood there, arms folded, until I finally said, “What the fuck did you do?”
“Yes,” he finally said.
“Yes what?”
“The divorce. It’s not, you know, final.”
“It’s not final? It’s not fucking final, Noah? How the fuck is it not final?”
“I—”
“Because it felt pretty fucking final when you made me sign the fucking divorce papers!” My voice slipped at the end, nearing a shout. I dragged it back down to a whisper. “What the fuck did you do?”
That outrageously fucking expensive foundation or concealer or whatever the fuck it was couldn’t hide the red rising in his cheeks.
Red eyes, too. But no tears. His gaze was hard and dry and bright, and for a moment, he looked the way he did the first time I saw him with a fever—about five seconds before he puked on our brand-new sofa.
And I knew what it meant. “Jesus Christ. You’re worried your dad will be mad?”
“I’m worried—” And he said the word like I was an idiot. “—he’ll cut off my trust.” He raised his chin. It was classic Noah-spoiling-for-a-fight. “He’s always looking for an excuse. And it’s my money.”
“It’s not your fucking money. It’s your great-whatever-the-fuck-grandpa’s money, and you just like spending it.” My chest was tight. “What do you mean he’ll cut off your trust?”
“What do you think I mean?”
I nodded. “Great. Fucking fantastic. And what’s your long-term plan?”
He stared at me.
“So, what?” I asked. “We can’t ever get divorced because you don’t want Dad to turn off the tap?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“You’ll figure something out. This is so fucking Noah, you know that?”
“I don’t know why I’m supposed to feel bad for having money.”
“You’re not supposed to—” But this was how he always did things. He changed the fight. He made it about something else, something I couldn’t win. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t—”
I clapped my hands, and Noah flinched. A small—very small—part of me shrank down, but that yawning red place in my head didn’t care.
“You. Lied. To me. You took those fucking papers, and you said we were done, and you walked out of my life. You fucked me over, Noah. Again. Which must be some kind of world record.”
“You didn’t even want to get divorced,” Noah mumbled. But he couldn’t meet my eyes.
“You are un-fucking-believable.” I smoothed my hands against my jeans.
The day’s grit—dirt and plaster and dust—felt shockingly rough under my palms. “Here’s how this is going to go.
First thing tomorrow, I’m calling a lawyer, and he’s going to call Daddy’s lawyer, and shit is going to get real.
Better pull out as much cash as you can, dumbshit, because the gravy train is about to stop. ”
“The gravy train?” he asked, and I could hear the ew in his voice.
“Go fuck yourself, Noah.”
As I pushed open the door, he said, “I won’t let you sell the house.”
Cold air swirled around my legs. I flattened my hand against the steel of the door; rough spots in the paint scratched my palm.
When I turned, Noah shrank down—only a little, but impossible to miss. His chin lifted again, though, in that fight-me-or-fuck-me look.
“It’s our house,” he said. “My dad gave it to us.”
For a moment, the only thought in my head was: what the fuck is wrong with you? But it had a distant, buzzing quality. And the cold air was still flooding in around my ankles. I let the door fall shut, and the thud-click of it settling into the frame was muffled, a long way off.
“If you tell my dad,” he said. “I’ll make everything take forever.
I’ll fight you for the house. I’ll fight you for the truck.
I’ll fight you for every tool in your stupid toolbox.
My dad has good lawyers. Do you have any idea how much it’ll cost you?
I’ll have you out of that house before the end of the day tomorrow.
I’ll have every door boarded up. Every window.
And then what’s going to happen on New Year’s Eve?
What’s going to happen on your stupid Instagram? ”
The chilliest part of my brain was awake now. The cop part. Watching him through cop eyes. The way he hugged himself. The way his weight moved back onto his heels. How he’d painted his nails in Christmas colors, and now those nails were digging into his arms.
“Or,” Noah said.
But that was it.
He stopped and watched me.
My jaw ached, which was strange because I hadn’t opened it in what felt like forever, hadn’t said anything in what felt like forever.
“Or,” Noah said more softly, “we can do this the easy way.” He waited, but I focused on staying upright, not moving, not losing my balance—because it felt like that cold air that had been washing around my ankles was still there, threatening to take my feet out from under me.
Noah finally said, “My parents are in town for the holidays, and they want to spend some time—”
“You are unbelievable.” But it was flat. Disbelief more than anger.
“—with us, and I’m not asking you to do anything except show up a couple of times—”
The laugh seemed to come out of nowhere. “You are un-fucking-real, Noah.”
“You have to!” Noah snapped. “Did you hear what I just said?”
“I heard,” I said, and I shouldered the door open. The night yawned open to swallow me. “Fuck you.”