Chapter Twenty-Five
Eli’s phone rang just as we were about to pull out of the parking lot. His navigation screen read Brigid. ?
“Sorry, I better get this real fast.”
He grabbed his phone from where it sat in the cupholder and bypassed the car’s Bluetooth as he answered.
“Hey there,” he said softly, and then after a moment, “You’re okay, though?”
He nodded and then quietly sighed. “Of course. No, I get it.” He paused. “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
With a quick glance, he gave me a small, apologetic smile. “Yeah, I love you too.”
My stomach sunk so very slowly as he hung up. I knew he had someone. But I supposed a silly, senseless part of me was holding out hope for . . . I don’t even know what.
“Hey, I’m going to drop you off real fast and then I’ve got to take care of something,” he said as he began to reverse.
“I can catch a ride back with Hollis or get an Uber back,” I offered. Him dropping me off made me feel like an annoying little sister.
“No, no.” He shook his head. “It’s fine.”
Obviously whatever he had to do, he didn’t want my company, but in an effort to save time, I said, “I could just go with you if that’s easier.”
He bit down on his lower lip as we idled at the exit of the parking lot. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“I’m not a brain surgeon,” I told him. “Lives aren’t at stake here.”
He nodded. “I’ll be quick.”
We drove across town in the opposite direction of Starlight Palms past all the picturesque parts of Palm Springs until we arrived in an area that could only be described as normal. There was a Target with ample parking and a Chili’s and a big chain movie theater with twelve screens.
Eli pulled into a Walgreens. Without a word, he ran in and quickly returned with a small bag.
I didn’t know where we were headed, but I did not expect to find us parking in the third visitor spot at Los Santos High School.
“Is your girlfriend a teacher?” I blurted. It was hard to imagine Eli dating a teacher. A lawyer maybe or even another doctor. But a teacher felt . . . sweet. And if she was sweet, I’d have a hard time justifying my distaste. Which was for no valid reason already.
He turned the car off and got out. “Not a teacher,” he said. “A student. My daughter, actually.”
My eyes widened and my stupid mouth fell open. “Your— How do you— You have a daughter?”
“You coming in?” he asked, leaning through the still-open door.
I scrambled to open my door and followed him in through the entrance, where we were buzzed into the front office.
“Are you here for an early pickup?” asked the woman behind the counter. Her hair was jet black with white roots coming in.
“No, actually.” Eli cleared his throat. “My daughter started her period and asked me to bring this to her.”
He held up the bag from Walgreens and took out a small box with a menstrual cup inside.
“We have pads and tampons in the nurse’s office,” the woman said.
“She’s a cup kind of girl,” Eli said with a shrug. “It’s Brigid Buckley.”
As the secretary got on her phone, Eli turned to me. “As of last summer, Brigid is very eco-conscious and refuses to use disposable menstrual products.”
Behind the counter, the woman covered the receiver with her hand. “The nurse said she’s been free bleeding in her office for the last hour.”
“Does she need a change of clothes?” he asked.
“Does she need a change of clothes?” the secretary repeated into the phone. She listened for a second, hung up, and looked to me. “Your daughter is on her way up.”
“Oh, she’s not my—” I began.
“Thank you,” Eli said.
We waited for a moment before a girl with wild pale blond hair stormed in through the door leading to the office.
“Hey, pumpkin,” Eli said like she wasn’t a day over five.
Brigid was stunning, which probably meant her mom was too.
She was at least five foot nine and her heart-shaped face wore full lips and wide eyes.
Back when I was in school, she would have been the kind of girl who could wear pajama pants and a messy bun every day while still being everyone’s number-one crush.
She hugged her dad for a millisecond as he asked, “Do you need a change of clothes?”
“No, I wasn’t even free bleeding, I stuffed some toilet paper up there.
And I don’t get why the nurse was freaking out.
It’s just a little bit of blood. She whispered every time she said the word period, like I’m supposed to be embarrassed or something.
” Brigid threw her arms up and said loudly enough for everyone in the office to hear: “I’m bleeding from my vagina.
My uterus is shedding its lining. Just a little PSA for anyone wondering.
” She took the bag from Eli. “Is this a cup?”
He nodded. “I think I got the right one.”
Brigid’s gaze cut over to me. “Who are you?” she asked bluntly.
“We’re coworkers,” I said just as Eli said, “An old friend.”
She shrugged, already bored. “Well, which is it?”
“Both,” Eli said.
With a nod, she looked me up and down. “I don’t use disposable menstrual products. They’re bad for the environment. And totally toxic.”
“That’s commendable,” I said.
“Try telling the school nurse that. She wanted to give me a pad that was the size of a fucking raft.”
The secretary gave her a pointed look. “Language.”
Brigid waggled her eyebrows as Eli shook his head. “Anyway, I gotta go.”
Eli gave a little laugh and leaned forward to give her a kiss on the forehead. “Tell your mother I said hi.”
“She broke the pool filter,” Brigid said. “She told me not to tell you.”
Grinning, he ruffled her silky hair. “I’ll send the pool guy out to take a look.”
Brigid skipped out of the office, swinging her bag at her side.
Eli and I headed back out to the car, and I didn’t know where to start.
Eli had a daughter. And maybe an ex-wife.
Well, another ex-wife. Or they could just be separated, I supposed.
It sounded like she was still living at their house.
Wherever that was. I guessed that helped make sense of why he chose to live in staff housing on a doctor’s salary.
“You have questions,” Eli said.
“A few.” He didn’t owe me answers, but we were living together. However temporarily that might be. And if he was technically married, I didn’t want to complicate anything.
Eli had always been like this. He never felt the need to fill in the gaps or explain the context of his life. It was the difference between people who couldn’t handle awkward silence and those who were entirely unbothered by it. It was as though he didn’t need or want anyone to understand.
Brody was always the one to give me the CliffsNotes of Eli’s life. Explaining his tense relationship with his father and how they had a summer house with a live-in chef and how he went to the kind of high school that had a rowing team and a library with stained-glass windows.
The fact that Eli appeared to be willing to answer my questions now felt like a trap.
“How old is Brigid?” I asked, not ready for the answers to the big questions.
“Fifteen going on twenty-eight.”
“She’s fiery.”
He nodded, the corners of his lips lifting. “God, don’t I know. We gave her my mom’s middle name. Brigid, the goddess of poetry and midwives, which was fitting. Her mom is a labor and delivery nurse.”
We drove through the gates of Starlight Palms as I pushed onward. “So are you two separated or . . . ?”
He shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. Selene and I were a one-night stand during residency. We tried to make it work once we found out she was pregnant, but—” He shook his head and left it at that.
“And she’s staying at your house?”
“She’s going through a messy divorce, so I gave her and Brigid the house until things settle.
I’d had the apartment at Starlight Palms for when I need to be on call or if something came up in the middle of the night.
” With a chuckle, he added, “I didn’t want to put Brigid through the trauma of watching Selene and I try to cohabitate.
We’ve figured out the parenting game. We’re good at that.
But not under the same roof. The only thing we agree on is Brigid’s well-being. ”
“Wow. I, um . . . This whole time I thought you had a girlfriend, honestly. I mean, I guess you still could, but I just figured all the late nights and—and the hair ties.”
“The hair ties?” he asked.
I pointed to a couple hair ties in the cupholder with a few blond strands of hair wrapped around them.
“Brigid leaves things everywhere she goes. Like breadcrumbs.”
I smiled. “We should go inside.”
He looked over at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “We should . . . but Vera?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
My chest swelled, burning with stupid, stupid possibility. “Good to know.”