by Penny Reid
“To get lunch.”
Lunch.
I’d planned to ask him out to lunch today so we could talk. But discovering Dan knew who I was—and had known for an indeterminate number of months—made me want to stress-eat all the cheese in Chicago. And the muffins. And not talk.
I was officially off-kilter. Again.
Given my history trying to form words around this guy while I was any shade of distressed, I knew avoidance was my best option. In my present state of mind, there was no way I could sit across a table from him for an unspecified period of time and not say something completely stupid. Like, I don’t know, share unnecessary details about my sketchy past. For example, I might admit, while reviewing my list of misdeeds, that I’d never been intimate with a man while sober. Or something equally horrifying and embarrassing.
It wasn’t just me being off-kilter that was a problem. And Dan being Dan wasn’t a problem. It was me being off-kilter plus Dan being Dan that equaled the problem.
Allow me to provide an analogy in chemical poetry form:
Potassium is just fine.
And water is completely benign.
But introduce K to H2O, and shit explodes in real time.
We live in a serious world, and we should never mock other people for their struggles. But making jokes about your own struggles is a coping mechanism, and a damn good one. So, yes, every once in a while I like to poke fun at myself.
That said, maybe today wasn’t the best day to have lunch with Dan.
But there is one more thing I need to know.
I sucked in a deep breath, bracing myself. “How long have you known?”
Dan leaned away a little, looking down at me, his expression inscrutable. “For a while.”
For a while.
For some reason, that answer made my stomach drop. Pressing my lips together, I dipped my chin to my chest and let my hair fall forward so I could think about the ramifications of Dan having known for a while.
Had he known in Vegas?
“Hey.” He stopped us, pushing my hair out of the way and slipping a finger under my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. They looked concerned. “It’s no big deal.”
“Oh? Really?” I laughed, knowing I sounded bitter. Better bitter than hysterical.
He didn’t respond, opting to examine me instead. His gaze turned probing, intensely interested, yet also intensely warm and . . . kind.
The kindness made my lungs feel like they were burning. Kindness felt too close to pity. Unable to bear his scrutiny—or kindness—I took a half step back and gave him my profile.
“I need to get back to work. I can’t have lunch today.” I felt his eyes on me, which made it even more difficult to concentrate.
After a few seconds of this, I sensed Dan move, drawing my halting attention back to him. He’d taken his cell out, selected a contact, and was now holding the phone to his ear.
“Hey. It’s me. Send a car for Kat. She,”—his eyes cut to mine, sharp yet aloof—“needs to get back to work.”
Chapter Five
Trustee: An individual or corporation named by a person, who sets aside property to be used for the benefit of another person (e.g. children of person), to manage the property as provided by the terms of the document that created the arrangement.
—Wex Legal Dictionary
**Kat**
I didn’t power on my phone for the rest of the day, which meant I didn’t call Eugene back. I needed distance from chaos and demands, time and space to get back on-kilter. So I lost myself in spreadsheets, conference planning, travel booking, and updating meeting minutes.
I decided I would power on my phone—to check for messages from my therapist and to call Eugene—once I was home, in my pajamas, and under my covers. Sometimes, a girl needed the solace of her safe place to prepare for battle.
However, my plans were derailed when, just as I approached the front door to my building, I heard a car door open and close.
Then a voice from the direction of the street said, “Kathleen.”
And I tensed.
He was here. He’d been waiting.
Darn.
“Do you always work this late?”
I turned to face Uncle Eugene and found him glancing up and down the street, taking the measure of my neighborhood.
“No. Not usually. But I had to take an extra-long lunch today. Do you want to come up?” I didn’t fake a smile. Things weren’t like that between us. I didn’t feel the need to be polite.
“Yeah. Let’s go up.” Crossing to me, he motioned to my door. His blue eyes seemed to inspect the lock with critical focus as I released the latch, and his frown was severe as we walked down the hall to the stairs. “No second security door?”
I shook my head, climbing the stairs, knowing he would follow.
He grumbled something, but did follow, his footsteps echoing mine as we climbed the four flights to my floor. Once I was finished unlocking the three deadbolts, I preceded him into my apartment so I could switch on the lights.
I only partially listened as he shut the door after us, securing all three deadbolts, before following me into my small studio. Once inside, he sighed.
“This is where you live.”
I tried not to laugh at the dismay in his voice. “Yes. This is where I live.”
He sighed again and I moved to the efficiency kitchen to make some tea.
“Earl Grey, coming up.”
“Thank you,” he responded in a way that sounded automatic, not moving from his place by the door.
Once the kettle was set, I turned back to him, inspecting him. He wasn’t wearing his usual gray suit and power tie. Instead, Eugene donned khakis, a navy polo shirt, and brown loafers. He looked incredibly uncomfortable in the casual attire.
Or maybe it was my casual apartment.
“You’re here about the prenup.”
His gaze came to mine and he nodded. “You turned off your phone.”
“You wouldn’t stop calling.”
“Are you married?”
“Come and sit.” I gestured to my little kitchen table. He eyed it as though it might be a trap. Eventually, he took a seat, looking very out of place at my favorite thrift store find.
“Are you married?” he asked again, his tone infinitely patient.
I sat across from him and folded my hands on the table. “I am married.”
He held very still. “And the prenup?”
“He didn’t sign the prenup.”
“Kathleen—”
“He couldn’t. We were married a month ago.”
Eugene flinched. “What?”
“Daniel O’Malley and I were married a month ago. Or so the marriage certificate says. And the security tapes will corroborate.”
Eugene leaned back in his chair, his expression belying his astonishment. “Well.”
“Well.”
“Congratulations.” His stare dropped to the table between us and he sighed again; this time it sounded full of wonder and relief rather than exasperation.
“Thank you.”
After a long moment, during which I’m sure he accomplished a great deal of scheming, he lifted his gaze to mine. “I’ll send a postnuptial agreement.”
The water for the tea was ready, the kettle clicked off, and I glared at my father’s oldest friend. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Kathleen.”
“Stop saying my name like it’s a magic word, like it’ll force me to be reasonable. I won’t ask Dan to sign anything. I trust him.”
“It’s not a matter of you trusting this man.” Eugene’s voice hardened and his blue eyes narrowed. “Lack of a pre- or postnuptial agreement brings your trustworthiness into question, not Mr. O’Malley’s. Marriage without a contract isn’t just inadvisable in your world—”
“My world?”
“—it’s foolhardy. Caleb will use your foolishness against you; he’ll point to it as proof that you’re unfit.”
�
�My mother didn’t have my father sign a prenup.”
“Yes. And look what happened!” Eugene slammed his hand on the surface of the table, leaning forward, his typically unassailable serenity alarmingly discomposed.
We stared at each other, fury crackling in his eyes, his teeth clenched. He was visibly upset, and that was enough to make me question my decision about the prenup (or, at this point, the postnup).
Resting an elbow on the table, Eugene shook his head, his eyes moving over me like I both infuriated him and worried him. “He has to sign it.”
“Eugene.”
“Don’t say my name like it’s a magic word, like it’ll force me to be reasonable,” he deadpanned, drawing a small smile from me.
“I’ll think about it,” I whispered.
“Good.” He stood, staring down at me. “I have no desire to be visiting you next year in an institution, because you were too selfless to do the right thing.”
“That’s an oxymoron. Selflessness is the same as doing the right thing.”
Eugene shook his head, studying me intently, and answering with a cryptic, “Not always.”
I never did make Uncle Eugene his tea.
He left almost immediately after delivering his impassioned message about the postnuptial agreement. Then he emailed me a new draft of the document the next morning. I didn’t have time to read it, nor did I particularly want to.
Skipping lunch, I opted for an impromptu touch-base meeting with my therapist Friday afternoon. Dr. Kasai’s building wasn’t too far from my work and, once I gave her a brief overview of the situation via phone, she fit me in for a session.
Sometimes I just needed her to tell me I was behaving within normal parameters, that my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors weren’t too far off ordinary. These days, we usually met once a month—down from once a week—unless something major happened. Early on, I’d had difficulty trying to determine what was considered major. Now I was much better at making the distinction.
However, I left her office feeling both better and worse. Better because Dr. Kasai said my inner turmoil over present circumstances was completely normal and at the end of our session she’d assured me that she would happily testify—if the time came—that I was of sound mind, and seemed genuinely horrified that anyone would seek to prove the opposite.
I felt worse because . . . so many other reasons.
Whenever I found myself in the position of feeling dissonance with Dr. Kasai’s advice, which wasn’t often, I would call my friend Sandra, bribe her with yarn, and attempt to stealthily pick her brain.
Which is why I found myself in a yarn store on Friday night, perusing the aisle of chunky-weights, and reminding myself that I owned seven skeins of emerald green yarn in various fibers and weights. I definitely did not need another four hundred yards in a bulky weight cashmere blend.
“That’s a pretty color.” Sandra picked up the color I’d been eyeing. “Oh, silk and merino and cashmere!” She held it up to her face and stroked it over a cheek. “I love it. Are you going to buy it?”
Yes!
“No. You should get it.” I forced a smile.
“Are you sure?” She held it out to me.
Mine!
“I’m sure.” I pushed it back toward her, swallowing the childish urge to snatch it from her hand. I had a yarn addiction. It was a problem. I will overcome.
She gave me a quick once-over, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “How about this? I’ll put it in my basket, and if you tell me what has you looking like an antelope in the middle of an enema, I’ll buy it for you. For the record, if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with your family.”
I breathed a short laugh; Sandra had an uncanny ability to read minds.
When I first met her and discovered she was a psychiatrist, I’d been resistant to her overtures of friendship. In the end, resistance had been futile.
“You don’t need to buy it for me.” I waved her offer away. “I don’t need it, I already have a half dozen in this color.”
“You’re such an adult.” She said this like being an adult was a bad thing.
Sandra was by far one of the funniest people I’d ever met. The things she said sometimes had us laughing the entire time at a knitting meetup. She once told me a story about a date of hers that had gone horribly wrong, and I laughed so hard I cried, my jaw hurt, and my stomach felt like I’d done a hundred crunches. Everyone needs a friend who can bring them tears and abdominal pain with funny stories.
She also happened to be the one who’d convinced me to give therapy another shot. Rather, she convinced me, but the ultimate catalyst had been my disastrous evening and morning with Dan in Vegas. I hated that I’d jumped to the absolute worst conclusion about myself with him, and I didn’t want to do that to myself anymore.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I do want your opinion on something. And yes, it has to do with my family. More specifically, it has to do with my session today at Dr. Kasai’s and her advice about my family.”
“You need a second opinion?” Her voice adopted the calm, soothing quality she used when she became therapist-Sandra instead of friend-Sandra.
“More like, I need a friend opinion.”
Sandra already knew my real identity, who my parents were, their current health afflictions, and how evil my cousin had been to me in the past. She also knew about my time as a runaway, and that I’d been unable to reach the end of the ‘O’ rainbow without alcohol for several years. The reason she knew these things—ironically—was because she’d gotten me drunk one night and I’d spilled everything.
“Okay, spill. And while you spill, I shall stroke hairy fibers.” Friend-Sandra was back and she tucked the yarn into her basket, giving it another pet.
“I can’t tell you everything, because things are still in flux.” I didn’t want to tell her about Dan or why we’d decided to get married. Dan was her friend as much as he was mine. As far as I was concerned, nothing was 100 percent decided between him and me. We hadn’t reviewed my list of misdeeds; he could still back out. I didn’t want Sandra to judge him harshly if he changed his mind.
“Okay, tell me what you can.” She picked up bulky weight merino yarn and stroked the back of her hand across it.
“So . . .” I cleared my throat, not knowing quite how to start. “There has been some upheaval at the company.”
“And it has you stressed?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “And you’re beating yourself up about . . . ?”
I huffed another laugh at her mind reading skills. Or maybe she just knows me too well.
“I guess, I could have it worse. Things could be worse.”
“Things can always be worse, no matter who you are. You might never again wonder where your next meal is coming from, but life isn’t the grief Olympics, it’s not a competition for who has it worse.”
“Sandra.” I stopped her with a hand on her elbow, whispering, “I’m worth seventeen billion dollars.”
“So what? Allowing yourself to feel badly about the fact that you have so much, in terms of monetary assets, and others have so little in comparison will do nothing but cause you to be paralyzed by guilt. Money does not equal happiness or fulfillment. Some people will argue that you ‘have it better’ than 99.9 percent of the world, but those people can’t comprehend the burden of what’s facing you, or of the life you’ve lived so far.”
I stared at my friend, absorbing her words. “I’m allowed to feel sad, disappointed, and frustrated.”
“Bingo.” She grinned, picking up another skein of yarn and brushing it against her neck. She immediately frowned, putting it back. “Ugh, scratchy. What is that? Acrylic?”
It had taken me a long time to accept that I had a right to sadness or anger. For so long I’d felt like, because of my birthright, I wasn’t allowed to feel anything but gratitude and guilt. How could I feel sadness over the loss of my mother to her disorder when others in the world were suffering, st
arving, and couldn’t afford basic necessities? How could I justify feeling disappointment about my father’s disinterest in me when there were millions of children in the world without a home?
This emotional paralysis was the first issue I’d addressed with Dr. Kasai, but even now—especially when I felt overwhelmed—I experienced difficulty accepting my emotions, desires, and wishes as legitimate.
“I think you said to me once,” Sandra turned to me, crossing her arms, “that you feel like your freewill is eclipsed by the responsibility you feel to the people employed by Caravel Pharmaceuticals. Also, responsibility to the people who might be helped by the products they develop, or might develop while you’re the majority stakeholder.”
“Yes.” I gave her an accusatory smile. “I did tell you that. If memory serves, it was that one time you got me drunk and I spilled my guts.”
She returned my grin with one of her own, not looking even a little bit guilty. “Out of curiosity, if you could give it all up, if you could sign it over to someone else and walk away, leave with nothing, would you?”
Stunned by the timeliness of her question, I blurted, “No. Of course not. It’s my responsibility. I walked away once and that was childish and selfish. I would never do that again.”
Sandra’s gaze turned probing. “There’s not even a wee, itty-bitty, little, teeny-tiny part of you that wants to walk away?”
I sighed, my chest tight with guilt, and felt my shoulders sag. “Perhaps a little part of me. A very little part of me.”
Because then I’d be free from failure, wouldn’t I? And right now—to that very small part of me—freedom from failure would be a relief.
Sandra nodded slowly. “Given the magnitude of what’s facing you, I would be surprised if a part of you—a very little part—didn’t entertain these thoughts. The urge to escape a trial by fire is normal. As long as you’re not seriously entertaining escape as an option, then know that these thoughts are healthy. But!” She held up a finger. “I’m more interested in how the thoughts, this desire to escape, makes you feel.”
I released a humorless laugh. “Guilt. Guilty.”