A few minutes later, Stephen’s headlights flash through the trees, and he comes to a stop in the driveway. Cooper’s hand slips from mine as he steps off the stoop to meet him at the truck and pull him into a hug. I rub my hands together for something to do with my nervous energy and allow them a minute alone. I hear Cooper ask, “Why didn’t you tell me, man?”
Once they’ve had a chance to talk privately, I make my way toward them, taking careful steps across the gravel.
“Hey, you,” I say to Stephen in a low voice. His facial hair is too long for the hospital, and the circles under his eyes are darker than when I saw him last. He and Megan have been going through this for a while. I stifle my disappointment that they didn’t allow us to be there for them before it got this far, when we could have helped. Stephen frowns and pulls me into the unforgiving chest of an outdoorsman, into his earthy smell, and rests his chin on my head. I’ve never seen him in so much pain.
“I’m sorry,” he says to me, and then to Cooper.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I say. “What happened? Maybe you guys can talk it out.” I turn my head so my voice isn’t muffled against his shirt. “Cooper and I can help.”
Cooper reprimands me with a single word—my name, low and insistent. It frustrates him when I try to fix things that are, according to him, “not my circus, not my monkeys,” even though that’s what we’re all in the business of doing. Every day we fix people who are strangers to us. Why can’t we fix the people we love?
“No,” Stephen says, the weight of the word in the air revealing the depth of his defeat. “We can’t talk it out. I’ve always known she was too good for me. I took her for granted, wasn’t there for her when she needed me. There’s no first-aid kit for this, Dylan.”
“Sure there is. It’s called tequila,” I say, and that gets a smile out of him, but it’s short-lived.
I hold Stephen tighter for a second, then let go.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I say, because it has to be. “You guys will get through this.”
“Okay,” Stephen says, humoring me.
“You’ll always be my brother. You know that, right?” Cooper says. He nudges Stephen’s shoulder. “Always were.”
“Damn it, dude.” Stephen pushes his fingers through his hair and turns toward his truck. “I have to go.” He walks away before we can invite him in for a beer, talk through it and come up with a solution, the way we used to. I guess we’re too old for that now. Life has gotten too complicated for simple answers.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Cooper says. Stephen doesn’t look at either of us when he nods and gets into the truck.
Cooper and I stand there until he drives away, Cooper an arm’s length and a world away. I swallow hard when he sniffs and gathers himself. It’s harder to watch him go through this than to feel the pain myself. I’m already jaded.
I wait for Cooper’s cue, and it comes as a strong arm around my waist. He pulls me tight to him and leads me toward the house. I stumble forward beside him in our awkward embrace. Before we reach the door, Cooper leans over and kisses me hard.
“I love you,” he says, clear and firm, as if trying to convince me. As if to say, That will never happen to us.
“I love you, too,” I say, and I pray more than anything that he’s right.
6
After Stephen’s confession, Cooper seems more determined than ever to assert that our relationship isn’t headed down a similar road. In bed one night, he wraps himself around me and whispers that he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, reminding me of the conversation I hoped he’d forgotten, at least for a little while longer. In the darkness, I keep my eyes closed and focus on deepening my breath so he’ll think I’m asleep. I hate myself for it, and for my indecision but I just can’t hurt him anymore. He drifts off with his heavy arm still draped over my chest, smothering me.
I sneak into the house late on Monday night. The lights are off, and Cooper and the puppy are asleep, like I hoped they would be. In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water and look around me, at what my life has become. There’s a potted orchid on the windowsill in the kitchen that’s half dead from lack of watering. The daisy seeds are hiding in their pots next to it. Pictures line the shelves in the living room, all of them a couple years old, as if Cooper and I died shortly after we moved in and someone kept the house open as a memorial. My high school and college basketball trophies sit on the shelves in the hallway without a speck of dust, thanks to the woman who comes to clean once a month. They all stand at exactly the same angle. Everything is so pristine, so organized, so untouched. I bite at the inside of my cheek when I realize it shares those qualities with my mom’s house. In hers, it’s because she works so avidly to keep up the appearance that she’s holding everything together. In my house, it’s because there’s hardly anyone here to live in it in the first place.
But I love our house. We bought it after Cooper had been at the practice for three months. It was his idea. I wasn’t so sure we were ready, but he insisted we could afford it, that our life was only going to get better. He had desperately wanted to get me out of the studio apartment we’d been living in, seducing me with a kitchen big enough to cook meals together, a shower that didn’t make it impossible to retrieve a dropped bar of soap and a few extra bedrooms for guests, “or whatever.” Even back then, we had no time to cook, and everyone we wanted to spend time with lived in the same city. I’d humored him by looking at modest homes I knew neither of us would fall in love with. I pretended I didn’t hear the insinuations about what our future would entail if we chose one.
But one evening, after a double shift at the hospital, he picked me up and drove me to the outskirts of the city, past the hustle and bustle and traffic noise, to a neighborhood with more trees than sidewalk cracks. The houses were set an acre apart and strained to reach the treetops. Many of them were so hidden behind nature it seemed as if the driveways led to nowhere, but then we rounded the corner, and in front of us stood a house with sleek lines and never-ending windows. They winked the sunlight back at me.
It was this house.
Cooper had a key, and I told myself I didn’t know why. He walked me from room to room, saying nothing, just letting me fill in the gaps. “This would make a great office... This could be the guest room... This would be our room...”
“So let’s make it our room,” he said. I laughed.
“There’s no way we can afford this. It’s too much. We don’t need that big backyard.”
Cooper took my hands in his. His expression held so much pride and hope. I already knew I wouldn’t say no to him, no matter how much my conscience nagged at me.
“I know how much you’ve always wanted a yard of your own. This way, you can go out there whenever you want,” he said. “I never want you to feel like you’re sacrificing. I know life would be a lot easier if we accepted the money your dad is always trying to trick us into taking.”
“He’s not—”
Cooper stopped me with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. But, Cooper, I’m not sacrificing. A big, fancy house isn’t important to me.”
“I know. And I love that about you. But don’t think of it as a house. Think of it as a daily reminder that I’ll never forget how much you’re worth...and that I’ll always try to make you feel like you made the right choice in loving me, even if it meant living in a glorified matchbox for the first few years of our relationship.”
I laughed, then pressed my lips to his until my tension and exhaustion dissipated. “I did make the right choice. I don’t need the reminder.”
With a wry smile, Cooper asked, “Is that a yes?”
I looked around me. I never would have picked it for myself, but Cooper always did know what I wanted better than I did. I groaned.
“We’
ll landscape the backyard,” he added quickly. So many mornings we had stood on our second floor balcony and stared out at the city streets below, sipping our coffee, while I imagined a waterfall, flowers, a wide plot of grass to lie in and read. I no longer had the desire to do the gardening myself, but I’d grown up used to having something beautiful to look at while I daydreamed at the back windows or outside sunbathing on the grass. Back then the dreams were a lot more fanciful.
My answer was a tired grin.
“Good,” he said with finality. “Because they accepted my offer.”
I rolled my eyes and nudged his shoulder, making him laugh. He wanted so much to give me everything. I let him carry me into the empty living room, where he rested me on the floor in front of the bay windows and made love to me. I felt unbelievably lucky to have a man who loved me so much, and as he pushed into me, slow and steady, I held his gaze to keep myself in the moment, hoping he wouldn’t one day regret this choice, or regret loving me.
“You’re home,” a sleepy voice says from the hallway, pulling me from my memories.
The tinkling of the puppy’s collar echoes through the quiet space. I start and busy myself with pouring the remains of my water into each of the plants as Cooper opens the back door to let the puppy out. He joins me in the kitchen.
“Did you eat?” he asks.
I set my glass in the sink and shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
I finally turn to look at him, leaning against the counter. He presses himself against me and wraps his arms around my neck, pulling my head into his chest. I breathe him in, the scent of his sleepy sweat.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against the top of my head.
I pull away from him so I can see his face. His features are soft and relaxed, and even though I sense he needs to say something important, I can’t stop myself from kissing him. I bury my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pull him to me, entwining my mouth with his. He pushes against me harder, lifting me onto the counter with one swift movement. I wrap my legs around his waist and pull him closer, drawing his energy, his love, his faith into me, losing myself in him and finding myself in him all at once. I shiver as my mind goes blissfully blank—no Abby, no Mom, no Megan and Stephen, no grant.
Our kisses turn from feverish to lazy as his stillness seeps into my pores like the effects of a good drug. I press my forehead to his, both of our eyes closed.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, determined. I wish he wouldn’t. There’s nothing he needs to be sorry for. “I’m sorry for not being supportive these last few months. I’ve always known research was what you wanted to do. It’s not right for me to expect you to change your mind just because I...”
Because he changed his mind. Because it made sense at the time we set our lofty goals, but reality isn’t quite as fulfilling as the fantasy.
I sigh and run my thumb over his cheekbone, the stubble there abrasive under my skin. My heart rate picks up, sensing this is the time to finally tell Cooper about how I could have stopped my sister’s death—to help him understand and get him back on my side. As much as I like to pretend I can, I can’t do this alone.
“Cooper, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
His body stiffens, but otherwise he doesn’t move, careful not to break the moment. I take a deep breath, searching for the right words. I’ve been close to telling Cooper a dozen times, but I’ve never been able to break through that final wall. And like all the other times, Abby’s face flashes into my mind—the very last time I saw her without an oxygen mask, without the stretcher and the EMTs. Her face was framed by the light blue trim of her car window, pale with pain, yet lit by her smile as she tried to reassure me.
“I’m fine. Go have fun. And, Dylan...”
She’d paused, both of us aware of how long it had been since we’d had a heart-to-heart.
“Thank you for always being there for me when I need you.”
I feel my eyes tear up again as her words echo through me, as clear as if she were sitting in front of me now. But for the life of me, I can never remember what I said in return. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to recall my final words to my sister. In my worst nightmares, I bring my fingers to my mouth and find that my lips are sewn shut. Did I know in that moment that mere hours later, I wouldn’t be there when she needed me most?
With Cooper looking at me, his brow furrowed in concern, my throat closes. I can’t speak. The fear is a physical thing, like an animal in a box it’s desperate to escape from, while at the same time being terrified of what it will find outside its familiar walls. It claws at my rib cage—the fear of saying it out loud, of admitting the real reason my mother never speaks to me anymore.
“What is it, babe?” he asks. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”
“I...” I clear my throat.
“Dylan, there’s nothing you could tell me that would change how I feel about you. Trust me. Trust what we have.”
I nod. The animal scratches.
“I feel...lost again. And I’m afraid of what I might do. I’m afraid of hurting you.”
It’s not what I need to say most, but it’s the truth. I know this feeling well, and I know what it makes me capable of. So does Cooper. It’s how we got together.
Cooper’s face falls blank, like he’s purposefully trying to avoid letting me see his true feelings. Over our last nine years together, we’ve had ups and downs, backs and forths, but no matter what setbacks we faced, we always knew where we were headed. We had a Point B, a map, a compass. We could always refocus. But here, in this place, the map has been stolen from us, and we’ve reached a fork in the road.
I wait for his reaction. Finally, his features reanimate, and he takes my hands in his.
“You’re not lost, Dylan,” he says. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. You’ve just been working toward the same goal for so long, you don’t know what to do now that you’ve reached it.”
“But I haven’t—”
“I know,” he says. “But you’re so close. Another grant will pop up soon. And you know you’re going to get it. No one has worked harder for it than you. So it’s natural to feel the need to reassess, set new goals. Especially for you. You don’t know what to do with yourself when you don’t have a goal.”
A laugh bubbles up from inside me and Cooper smiles. “It’s like you know me better than I know myself sometimes.”
I have been keeping my eye on grant listings, but nothing new has come up. Not that I expected it to.
Cooper lowers his voice and says, “You can’t be a great doctor without being a great student,” quoting our genetics teacher, making me laugh harder. He presses his smile to mine. In his own voice, he adds, “And you’ve always been my favorite subject.”
He traces kisses over my jawline, on one side and then the other.
“You’ve always been my home,” I say.
“Come to bed.”
I nod. He goes to the back door to let the puppy in, then I follow him to our bed. I curl up in his arms, exactly where I’m supposed to be.
* * *
“New consult, undetermined EGA, no complications,” Enrique rattles off as he comes out from behind the nurses’ station. We walk through the halls of the clinic on the way to my first appointment of the day, and I latch on to the medical jargon to focus my distracted mind. An undetermined due date means I’ll need an ultrasound, otherwise standard procedure.
“Got it,” I say. I trade Enrique my triple shot latte for the chart as we reach the exam room door.
“I grabbed the finished charts off your desk and piled some more on there for ya. One of your patients is in L and D getting checked out. Not admitted yet.”
“Perfect.”
“Do you need anything else?” he asks. He takes a swallow of my lat
te. I shake my head.
“A nurse who’s actually concerned about spreading viruses?”
“You look healthy to me,” he says. “And I look healthier with caffeine in me.”
“Oh, Enrique, you always look good.”
He flashes me a Cheshire cat grin.
I enter the exam room and glance down at the chart in my hand for the patient’s name.
“Hi, Dylan.”
I hear the patient’s voice at the same time I read it in all capital letters, printed across the top of the paperwork, and my heart drops. I squint at my chart to be sure and then at the woman sitting on the examination table in the hospital gown, those all-too-familiar blue eyes shining back at me.
“Megan?”
She gives a bashful laugh. “I was going to ask you to lunch today, but I thought, ‘Hey, if I get pregnant, we can make it a standing date.’”
It’s funny. I want to laugh. She clearly needs me to laugh. Instead I stand there, mouth agape, as my two worlds converge, and the implications settle like ash around me, suffocating.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to shock you. Not any more than I’ve shocked myself.”
I should have realized at the last family dinner—the nausea, the weight loss, the fatigue.
“No... It’s just... Wow. Does Stephen know? It is his, right?” I ask more quietly. I don’t know how long things have been bad between them, I realize now more than ever.
“It’s his. And no, he doesn’t know.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I still haven’t accepted that they’re separating, let alone the talk of divorce amongst the family. Part of me dares to hope this could bring them back together.
“I know,” Megan says. “Trust me. This isn’t how I expected things to go. How does the song go again? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes divorce, then comes the baby.” She forces a smile, but her hands are shaking in her lap.
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