Chasing Charlie

by C. M. Newman

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: COMING CLEAN

  “Mitch, hey!” Vince said, confused to say the least. The brothers embraced, clapping one another solidly on the back. “Did I lose track of what day it was?”

  Mitch laughed. “No, man, someone was asking around for extra shifts today so I gave mine up and hopped on an earlier bus. Where’s the kiddo?”

  “He’s in my room. It’s good to see you.” Vince was still thrown off by the surprise visit, but thrilled nonetheless. “Charlie, your uncle’s here,” he called.

  “Uncle Mitch?” Charlie asked, skipping down the hall with red eyes but a smile on his face.

  “Hey, big guy, look what I brought,” Mitch said, sliding his duffel bag down his shoulder and taking out a white stuffed bear wearing a Cubs cap and jersey.

  Charlie snatched it up. “Cool!”

  “Can I get a hug?”

  Charlie readily hopped into his uncle’s arms, giggling when he picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.

  “Nice haircut,” Mitch said, holding on to an upside-down Charlie with one hand and grabbing his brother’s head with the other. “So, what’d I interrupt tonight? Anything exciting?”

  “Angela was showing me Daddy’s shot. It’s scary,” Charlie said behind Mitch, still hanging over his shoulder.

  “Angela? She’s here?” Mitch asked.

  In the excitement, Vince had indeed forgotten all about her, though he would never admit it. “Yeah, she’s back there somewhere. I’ll go get her.” He found Angela in his room, putting away his blood sugar testing kit and insulin pen. “Hey, Mitch is here. He came early.”

  “I heard,” Angela said with a smile, listening to Charlie’s shrill giggling that rang throughout the entire apartment. “I just wanted to let you guys say hello and catch up.”

  “Well, you’re part of the catching up process. Come on out and meet him. He doesn’t bite.”

  Angela rolled her eyes lightly and followed Vince out into the living room. The first thing she saw was the back of a leather jacket and Charlie hanging upside down, laughing at being tickled in the stomach, kicking his feet while his cheeks grew bright red. “Put me down!” he demanded.

  “Okay, okay, but only if you say ‘uncle’!”

  Angela and Vince watched with amusement as Charlie tried to gather up enough breath with which to speak. “Uncle Mitch, please!”

  “There we go,” Mitch said, turning as he let Charlie down. “Oh, hey,” Mitch said, somewhat short of breath himself as he reached out a hand. “You must be Angela. I’m Mitch.”

  Beaming, Angela shook Mitch’s hand. “It’s great to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “I’ve heard plenty more about you, and mostly good. I know Vince’s not a hugger with strangers, but I am. C’mere.” He pulled Angela in for a hug, which she returned. “What’s this about a…shot?”

  “Ah, new development,” Vince replied. “Found out today that I’m diabetic.”

  Mitch’s smile slipped away with ease. “Oh, wow…Sh—geez, that’s rough…”

  “I just need to monitor what I’m eating so I know how much insulin to take. It’s not that big a deal,” Vince fibbed, some good practice under his belt from when Jenna had reacted with much more worry than Mitch.

  The diabetes was the icing on the cake, really, considering how much chemotherapy and the cancer itself had already messed with his body. Vince knew that in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing—this new disease was manageable and wouldn’t be what killed him in the end—but it was still irritating.

  “Okay, well, as long as you’ve got it under control. So, what’s with the beard?” Mitch asked, feeling his own, which was not as full as his brother’s for probably the first time in either of their adult lives.

  “Angela likes it,” Charlie said innocently. “Hey Daddy, does Uncle Mitch know about you and Angela being boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “Yes, Uncle Mitch knows Angela and I are together,” Vince said, “but for future reference, that’s not the best way to find out if someone knows about me and Angela, all right? How about you go put your bear in your room?”

  “A secret affair, eh?” Mitch asked with a grin when Charlie was out of earshot.

  “My decision,” Angela admitted. “Didn’t want the comments. Bad move, considering I’ll get them eventually, but…” She shrugged. “Hey, are you hungry? We had some dinner left over.”

  “I’m good, but thanks. So is that what I was interrupting? Insulin time?”

  “That’s the exciting life we lead around here,” Vince said with a sigh.

  Mitch took off his coat and shoes and followed Vince and Angela into the living room. “You didn’t have that the last time I saw you,” Mitch said, pointing to the portable fireplace.

  “Oh, yeah, check this out.” Vince got to showing Mitch his new toy.

  “Angela?” Charlie asked timidly, skipping around his dad and uncle, who were playing with the settings on the fireplace.

  “Yes?” Angela asked as Charlie climbed up next to her.

  “Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s Thursday. Why wouldn’t you have to go to school?” Angela asked, wondering even more why Charlie asked her when two adult family members were in the room.

  “’Cause I wanna see Uncle Mitch.”

  “You already missed school on Monday because you were sick, buddy,” Vince said.

  Charlie looked up at Angela with an award-winning pout. “What? It’s not up to me,” she said with an apologetic smile. “That’s your daddy’s call.”

  “Come on, man, let him skip a day and hang out with me,” Mitch said.

  “Friday,” Vince said with finality. “Then you can have a longer weekend, okay, Charlie?”

  “Okay,” Charlie moaned. “Daddy has to go get his medicine tomorrow, Uncle Mitch. Are you gonna stay here?”

  “I dunno yet,” Mitch said. “I was gonna ask your dad if there’s anything that needs to get done, ’cause I know he’s a little tired from chemo. And I was thinking I could cook something good for dinner. How about that?”

  “Macaroni and cheese?” Charlie asked with bright eyes.

  “Hmm, maybe something a little more creative, like swordfish.”

  Charlie cringed. “Yuck. Can we watch SpongeBob, Daddy?”

  “Little late for TV, buddy. Time for your bath, actually.”

  “No! Remember, you said I could take a shower? Can you show me how to work it again?”

  “Sure. Sorry, guys, be right back,” he said to Mitch and Angela.

  “Take your time. We’re fine,” Angela said. Given that she didn’t feel as if she were invading Mitch’s territory, getting to know him seemed a little less daunting than getting to know Jenna. “Coffee?” she offered.

  Mitch shook his head apologetically. “Sorry, no, but thanks. I really am fine.”

  “I just feel…inhospitable with you sitting there without anything. Even though it’s not my place,” Angela said.

  “Are you here a lot?” Mitch asked.

  “Almost every day. Work’s kept me away a couple days, but usually I’m here for the evening.”

  “Charlie seems to like you,” Mitch observed.

  Angela gave him a bashful, thin-lipped smile. “Well, I sure do like him. He’s a sweet kid.”

  “You know, you’ve probably seen him much more than I ever have, and I’m his own flesh and blood. How sad is that?” Mitch asked, sitting forward and setting his elbows on his knees.

  “People drift apart. It happens.” They both heard the shower turn on in Charlie’s bathroom. “It happened with me and my parents to a certain extent. But you can always go back to your family. Vince is really glad to have you back. So is Charlie.”

  “You know what? I know I’ve only known you for what, a few minutes, maybe?” Mitch lowered his voice and leaned forward, seeming like he was winding up for a big speech. “But…thank you. I know you’re not with him for thanks or credit,
I know you just want be happy with him, but thank you anyway. I can’t imagine going through what he’s going through, but alone. I mean, I…talk to him on the phone about his treatments or how he’s lost more weight or whatever the topic of the day is, and I can tell he’s upset, he’s scared. But whenever Charlie’s name pops up or yours pops up, he doesn’t sound half as bad.” Mitch turned and made sure Vince was still in the bathroom. “To have Charlie around is one thing, but you don’t get emotional support form a six-year-old like you do from a friend or a girlfriend, or a lover, or…whatever you go by,” Mitch said, finishing off with a nervous grin.

  “Girlfriend is fine, though Charlie has used the term ‘friends who kiss,’” Angela said, trying to dissolve the awkwardness. “I should really start writing his little gems down for a book of some sort.”

  “Remember any off the top of your head?” Mitch asked.

  “Hmm…there was a pregnant woman at the grocery store last weekend, and he asked Vince rather loudly if she was indeed pregnant.” She stopped to allow Mitch room to chuckle. “And then we made cookies, and he asked if I eat them all the time, because, and I quote, ‘Auntie Jen eats a lot of them and she said that’s why she has a little pooch under her jeans and I think you do, too.’”

  “Ouch.”

  “Eh, he’s right.”

  Vince came back down the hall. “Had to stick around for a couple minutes to watch and make sure he didn’t drown,” he explained. “Sorry, it looks like I interrupted something.”

  “We were just talking about you,” Mitch said casually. “We can continue later. So Charlie still doesn’t usually take showers?”

  Vince took his seat again. “I try once in a while and he doesn’t like it, but this morning he woke up and insisted that he wanted to try again. He was like that with potty training too, though. He didn’t really want anything to do with it until we stopped trying.”

  “Stubborn like his dad, maybe?” Angela teased.

  “Runs in the family,” Vince said sardonically. “Mitch here wouldn’t wear a black tux to his prom because Mom said he looked as handsome as I had for my prom. So he wore orange.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t come home from school one Thanksgiving because Mom and Dad were going to give me your old room,” Mitch shot back.

  “Like I said, it’s hereditary.”

  Angela grinned. “Brotherly love.”

  “It’s how we’ve always been,” Mitch said. “How was chemo today?”

  “It was all right for me,” Vince said. “Frankie wasn’t feeling so great, though.”

  “Oh, your little chemo buddy?” Mitch asked. “The one that’s got a huge crush on me even though she’s never met me?”

  “Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Vince said, fighting off a yawn.

  “You’re bushed,” Angela remarked. “Maybe you should turn in.”

  “Mitch just got here,” Vince objected.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mitch said. “I came early without warning, for one, and I don’t want you to push yourself. We have plenty of time to do nothing but shoot the breeze. Go to bed.”

  “I will when Charlie’s tucked in, maybe.”

  “One of us can do that,” Angela argued.

  Vince shook his head. “It’s not that. I just don’t need to go to bed right now. He’ll be done in a few minutes. I can wait up. Besides, you’re sleeping in my bed.”

  “No, I’m not,” Mitch said.

  Vince knew he wouldn’t win the argument; he had simply needed it to be on record that he’d tried.

  “You guys have fun arguing. I need to get home. I’m almost out of clean everything, so it’s laundry night,” Angela said.

  “Stay a little longer and watch some TV, at least?” Vince almost begged.

  “I thought you were going to bed when Charlie did?” she countered.

  “Only because you’re making me. Really, I’d rather stay up and visit.”

  “We’d rather you didn’t push it,” Mitch piped in. “I’m gonna be here another few nights. Let’s just think of tonight as me getting here early so I won’t be traveling tomorrow. Official visit hasn’t started yet.”

  Vince got up and walked into the kitchen.

  “Please tell me that’s not coffee,” Angela called.

  “I just want to stay up a little while longer.”

  Mitch clued in that the happy couple could use a minute alone and excused himself to use the bathroom. Angela approached Vince with caution. “Would you please take care of yourself?” she murmured.

  Vince found that the basket he used for coffee filters was empty. “What? I am taking care of myself. It’s only eight-thirty.”

  “And you’re downright exhausted, and you’ve been to two different doctors since chemo. You’ve had a long day by anyone’s standards and you’re tapped emotionally, too. There is absolutely no shame in going to bed early if that’s what your body wants you to do.”

  “It’s my brother, Angela. I never see him. I can’t just go to bed,” Vince said, starting to let the cabinet doors close more loudly as he searched through each and every one for a new pack of coffee filters he knew he’d bought.

  “And he feels awful for making you feel like you need to stay up and entertain him. The second I walk out that door, you know he’ll be on your case worse than I am, because he’s not afraid of you withholding affection if you’re angry at him,” she said, trying to lighten up the conversation. “I know I could never understand what it is you’re going through, so I’ll try to stop pretending I do. But I do understand that you feel like you’re missing out when you’re sleeping. And…” Angela licked her lips and sighed. “I feel the same way every time I go home. But you know what happened your last round of chemo. You need to sleep.” She chanced an upward glance and saw him staring off over her shoulder, his jaw shifting somewhat menacingly. “I’m sorry if this is demeaning. I don’t want to seem bossy. I don’t want to be bossy. I don’t want to make your decisions for you. I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to stress you out…”

  “Then why are you still going on about it? Because that’s exactly what’s happening,” Vince asked as quietly as he could.

  Eyebrows arched, Angela backed off and folded her hands in front of her. She took a moment to consider what Vince had said. “I just want you to be healthy—as healthy as you can be,” she said with trepidation, wishing she could take back every word and avoid the now inevitable first fight.

  “Staying up past my son’s bedtime to chat with my brother isn’t going to hurt me.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said with a tired sigh. “It’s been a long day. My head isn’t on straight right now. I shouldn’t have gotten all…overbearing, just like I was at your oncologist’s office.”

  Vince stood stock-still, wondering how on earth he and Angela were in their first tiff over a cup of coffee. She had every right to be worried, to want him to get his rest, but he wasn’t ready to give up every ounce of power he had left. He didn’t feel that there was a way to apologize for snapping without making it a conditional apology—one that implied that he wouldn’t have snapped if she wouldn’t have gone too far—so he said nothing.

  “I’m gonna get going,” Angela muttered. “I—”

  “Goodnight, Angela,” Charlie sang on his way down the hall. He slid into her in his footie pajamas and hugged her waist. “Can you come back after work tomorrow?”

  Angela put on a smile for Charlie and lowered herself down to his level. “I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll see, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She kissed him on the forehead. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”

  Still with no sign of Mitch, they were alone again when Charlie went back to his room. “See you tomorrow night?” Vince asked, hating that he couldn’t think of what else to say that didn’t involve choking down an enormous amount of pride.

  Angela nodded as she shrugged on her coat. “Sure. Goodnight.” Please, get some sleep, s
he added in her mind. “I love you.” She stared at the floor as she toyed with her car keys, praying that even if Vince wasn’t going to try to make amends tonight, he would at least return the sentiment.

  “Love you, too.” He didn’t see her face again as her hair hid it from his view on her way out. “Nice,” he muttered to himself.

  “She left?” Mitch asked once Vince had stood alone in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, letting reality sink in.

  “Yeah,” Vince asked, starting up a pot of coffee. “I’m gonna go tuck Charlie in. I’ll be right out.” Luckily for Vince, Charlie didn’t seem to read into his emotions, didn’t see the remorse in his eyes or the tension in his forehead, so tucking him in was an easy task that night.

  “You okay?” Mitch asked when Vince made a reappearance and looked for his favorite mug.

  “Dandy.”

  “Did you guys just fight or something?” Mitch looked utterly bewildered when Vince peered over his shoulder.

  “I snapped at her,” Vince confessed.

  “You don’t need to tell me details,” Mitch said. “Sorry, I’m being snoopy.”

  “Why do you suddenly apologize for being snoopy?”

  “Because for once I don’t want to know—now that I do know—if that makes sense. Although I do have one thing to say.”

  “Don’t you always?”

  Mitch rolled his eyes at his cranky brother. “Whatever she said to you, whether or not she deserved you snapping at her, do you really wanna waste time fighting?”

  If Mitch weren’t his brother, Vince might make an effort to spend as little time as possible with him. He hated being taught life lessons by someone twelve years his junior. “We didn’t fight.”

  “Come on, man, you know what I mean. Did she walk away feeling as content as she did when she got here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”

  “That sure sounds promising. I don’t think you should wait that long. I think you should call her.”

  Vince stared at the coffee pot, waiting for the last drop to fall. He poured himself a cup.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll shut up. That’s the thing that ticked you off in the first place, and Angela had to take the fall for me, too. I’m done meddling. Are you gonna stay up?”

  Vince stared into his cup of coffee and shook his head. “I should get to bed. I’m obviously in a foul mood. Not the best kind of company. Sorry.”

  “You had a long day. It’s fine. Get some sleep and we can all start fresh tomorrow.”

  Vince locked up and heard Mitch turn on the television once he was back to his bedroom. His phone sat in his pocket, waiting to be taken out, waiting to be dialed. All he needed to say were two words, but surely they were two words Angela already knew.

  He had already realized earlier that he had snapped at Angela because he felt powerless. That knowledge had since escaped him somehow, though, and now he plugged in his phone to charge, tucking himself away into bed, wondering why it was so difficult to call.

  —

  Angela’s new plan, one of many things that had kept her up the whole night, had been to do a better job managing her emotions at work. She had made herself a few halfhearted promises already, but if she really wanted to stop alienating her friends, she knew she had to put in a bona fide effort.

  She knew from experience, however, that managing her emotions was truly hard work. It required strategy, focus, and energy. She could come up with a strategy just fine, but she couldn’t focus for the life of her, and her first fight with Vince—no matter how small it had been—had made for a sleepless night and had robbed her of enough energy to make the morning drive interesting for some other drivers.

  Instead of wanting to hide in a corner for yet another day, what Angela found herself really wanting this morning was a sounding board. Not simply because she and Vince had had a spat, but because she was shouldering a burden far heavier than what she ever would have expected, and it was only going to get exponentially worse as time went on. Remembering what she had promised Vince yesterday, she didn’t even stop at her desk, but instead went straight into Harry’s office. “Fitz?” she asked, taking half a step inside.

  “Hey,” he said with a congenial smile, turning from his computer screen. “Look who showed up on time. I take it you’re not taking that half day today, are you?”

  “Uh, no. It’s probably going to be tomorrow. Do you mind if I shut the door?”

  “’Course not.” Harry put his computer to sleep and turned to face Angela straight on once she took a seat. “You haven’t even taken your coat off yet.”

  “I really wanted to talk to you. Is now a good time?”

  “Any time’s a good time for us to talk. You know that. You look like you could use some coffee. Here, haven’t touched it yet.” He slid a full cup toward Angela. Exhausted and still cold, she couldn’t resist, not even caring that she didn’t take her coffee black.

  “Thanks,” she said when one sip started to warm her from the inside out.

  “No problem. So, what’s on your mind?”

  Angela set her face and breathed evenly. “First, I need to apologize. I haven’t been myself the last few weeks. You’ve all told me that, and I’ve just…brushed you off and called you silly.”

  “We’ve been called worse,” Harry said gently, with a twinkle in his eye. He folded his hands in front of him. “Don’t worry about us, Angela.”

  “I have to, Fitz. I haven’t—I haven’t been a good friend to any of you. Ever since this all started. You probably already know what I’m about to tell you, so feel free to gloat, but I do need to say it myself.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve been…seeing Vince since his first round of chemo ended,” she confessed. Even though she was scared to death right now, hearing the words come from her lips and travel to the ears of someone else—someone who cared about both her and Vince—was an indescribable comfort.

  “I’m not really one to gloat when one of my best friends is so upset,” Harry said. “But I will respectfully say that I’d gathered that much on my own, or at least I was pretty sure about it.” Harry rose from his chair and circled his desk.

  Angela unconsciously rotated her chair to face the mate that Harry took. “The half day is so I can go to chemo with him and meet a friend of his.” She groaned. “This is by far the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but I don’t regret it at all. Does that even make sense?”

  “To an outsider, maybe it doesn’t. But to someone who knows you and Vince and wants the best for both of you…it makes perfect sense.”

  “Really?”

  Harry hunched his shoulders and leaned over his knees. “I wouldn’t regret it either. Everyone dies sooner or later. You just know it’ll be sooner for Vince. If he makes you happy, then you do what you gotta do.”

  “I can’t believe this will be over so soon. It just…”

  “Hurts?” Harry said. He relaxed and sat back now, letting Angela decide whether there was anything more she wanted to say. He put his cheek against his hand, his elbow on his desk.

  Angela sat back, too, not sure whether she wanted to unload even more or if she would rather collect herself and try to move on with her day. She wasn’t ready for the latter, she decided. “It’s not just that I’m losing him, you know. It hurts in so many other ways. I hate seeing him waste away, and not because of what he looks like, but because every pound he loses makes him weaker and destroys his self-worth that much more. And he wants to do all these things that he used to be able to do, but he can’t. So he either pushes himself and does it anyway and then suffers the consequences, or he’s angry. And you know what? He has every right to be angry. Sometimes I don’t think he’s angry enough. I know it’s Vince and he’s not violent outside of when he needs to be, but you know, Fitz? Sometimes I wouldn’t mind seeing him throw something across the room. Or maybe it’s just that I want to, and I think he’s got more of a right to.”

&nbs
p; Angela had to stop. Her head was throbbing in protest against all the talking without enough breathing. “And Charlie…Every time I see him look at Charlie, my heart breaks a little more. He doesn’t really get it yet—not saying that I do, but still—he doesn’t understand time the same way we do. I think that’s a pretty big blessing. And I think for the most part Charlie was doing fine, but then yesterday Vince’s blood work from his chemo came back and his oncologist wanted to see him. And I…I had to go with him. I wanted to, anyway. That’s why I skipped out, by the way. I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a slow day,” Harry reassured her.

  Angela shook her head. “Still…anyway, we found out he’s diabetic now.”

  “Diabetic?” Harry asked, now more concerned for Vince than for Angela.

  She nodded. “It was really sudden, but his oncologist said it’s really common with pancreatic cancer. So…we saw another doctor, learned how and when to take his insulin and everything, and Vince told me Charlie’s afraid of needles. He couldn’t even watch Vince take his shot after dinner, and then later on he just saw me holding the needle when I was putting it away and he started crying.”

  Harry waited patiently for Angela to solidify her point.

  “I thought for sure that if he could see his dad do something scary, that it wouldn’t be so scary anymore. But now I’m wondering if he doesn’t really…see Vince the way he used to, you know? Maybe he doesn’t look up to him in the same way anymore. To top it off, Vince had to tell Charlie he couldn’t pick him up yesterday. It hurts him too much. I think Charlie’s finally realizing how weak his dad is really getting. I don’t know where I was going with any of this.”

  “Nobody’s grading you,” Harry said.

  “Anyway, I’m really sorry for how…mysterious and closed-off I’ve been. You didn’t deserve to sit here and wonder what had me so upset.”

  “There wasn’t really a whole lot of wondering involved after a certain point,” Harry said self-assuredly.

  “Ah, there’s the gloating,” Angela said with a feeble laugh.

  “Whoops.”

  Angela’s smile melted away after a moment and she rolled her eyes into the back of her head. The tears spilled as Harry dove into a monologue only he would give.

  “I wish I could change this for you, Angela. For both of you. I love you both like family. For what it’s worth, I think everyone who’s ever worked closely with you two has seen the chemistry to a certain extent.” Harry sat forward again and met Angela’s eyes. “They’ve probably seen that you two make sense. But the way I see it…it’s about a whole lot more than chemistry. It’s about how far you’re willing to go to protect each other. How much you feel it when the other’s hurting. I think that maybe…this is when it was supposed to happen. He’s never needed anyone as much as he does right now. And the same goes for you. Maybe this is how you and Vince were supposed to figure it all out.”

  Angela shook her head, biting down on her lip until she thought she tasted blood. “That’s cruel. No, I can’t think of it that way. I’ve tried to…rationalize this. And any time I put it in terms of this being God’s plan all along, I just end up even more bitter and resentful. Normal relationships aren’t supposed to go this way. Normal people pair up to grow old together, to enjoy things together, maybe to have kids, all of that. They have a future, like you said.”

  Harry cleared his throat and pulled his glasses off. “Let me ask you something. Are either one of you even remotely normal?”

  “I’d like to think I’m not so strange,” Angela said pathetically. “As for Vince, I’ve never really seen him as normal. I always kind of…set him apart.”

  Harry shrugged. “Who in the world falls in love with someone they don’t set apart?”

  Angela’s lips turned up a bi at this. Even though she was a mess, even though her conflict from the night before still hadn’t been resolved, she felt worlds better than she had felt walking through Harry’s office door. “Thank you. I think I’ll tell everyone else soon enough, just…not today. I’d really like to get a solid day in and feel a bit more like myself.”

  “I think we’d all like to see that. Especially Hanson,” Harry said with a playful grin.

  “Hilarious. I take comfort in the fact that she doesn’t give a lick about what goes on in this team as long as we get our jobs done.”

  “What’re your next few days like?” Harry asked.

  “Vince’s brother is in town for the weekend.”

  “Ah, so you’re meeting the family?” Harry teased. “This must be…pretty serious.”

  “Can I hug you before you completely kill the mood?” Angela said stuffily.

  Harry nodded and took Angela in for a hug just firm enough. “Hugs are always free. My advice is free too. Jury’s still out on whether it’s any good, though.”

  Angela shrugged as she drew away. “It worked for me. By the way, and this is probably obvious, but I’ll most likely finally use all my vacation days this year. And my sick days. All of it.”

  “Of course. It’s your time.”

  Angela nodded and ran her fingers under her eyes. “Ugh, how scary do I look right now?”

  Harry sized Angela up, smiled, and walked to the window out onto the bullpen. “If I’m not mistaken, since no one’s gabbing over by the coffee, Marshall and Sophie aren’t here, or they’re off somewhere else. Make a run for the bathroom.”

  —

  “Hi,” Angela answered her phone quietly an hour later. She was swimming in paperwork at her desk.

  “Can you talk?” Vince asked from an empty corner of the waiting room at the chemotherapy center.

  Angela cleared her throat. “Not really.”

  Vince’s heart sunk. He pictured Marshall sitting a few feet away, not being able to help but overhear Angela’s side of the conversation. “Well, can you listen?”

  “Yes.” She crossed a tense arm over her stomach, not sure how ready she was to make up with Vince after all.

  “Good. I’m sorry about last night. I was being childish. I need to get used to my limitations and not…take it out on you when you’re just trying to do what’s best for me. It’s not fair of me.”

  Angela sighed and rolled her eyes at herself. “Let’s…just forget about it. It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “In any case…I wanted to call last night, but by the time I worked up the nerve, it was late, and then I tried to call this morning but Charlie spilled orange juice all over himself and the kitchen floor so I had to hose him off…”

  “Sounds like a busy morning,” Angela said, sounding pleasant enough.

  Vince had never known an apology to be more healing for both parties. It was an odd revelation, considering how minor the disagreement had been. “We don’t have time to fight. I’m sorry I wasted last night.”

  “You can’t take all the blame. Only half, if that.”

  “No, this is all on me. You apologized right away and I was a jerk about it. I shouldn’t have let you walk away on bad terms.”

  “I forgive you. Let’s just…move past it.”

  Vince sensed Angela wanted to say more but couldn’t. “Okay. Thank you. How’s the rest of your morning been?”

  “Good, actually. Got in early, went over some stuff with my ASAC, then got right to work.”

  “You told Harry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “Great.”

  “That’s good. I’m glad. I’m about to get marked tardy here,” Vince said with a chuckle when he caught the eyes of the nurse waiting to take his vitals and blood. “I guess I should let you go.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Angela replied, successfully conveying a smile through her tone.

  “I know you’re not somewhere where you can say it back, but…I’m telling you so you know. I love you.”

  Angela grinned crookedly. “I love you too, Mom. Talk to you later.”
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