Confidential(30)

But why had he gone to my apartment to talk to Kate? After all the affirmations in his waiting room, he said he’d come straight back here so we could do what people in love do. He’d seemed eager to see me later. Instead . . .

He’d been looking for a loophole. He didn’t want to fulfill his promise. He didn’t want to go public with me.

No, it couldn’t be that. He’d learned his lesson; he was direct with women. What he said was what he meant—in his office when he was telling me how much he loved me and now, when he was telling me how angry he was. Understandably angry.

“You realize,” he said, “she still could blow the whistle.”

“No, she can’t. We waited two years. We’re in the clear.”

He shook his head, infuriated. “No, we’ve been together secretly for two years. And I’m sure she can prove it. I’m sure you must have texted about me.”

“She would never—”

“You don’t know what she would do!” he shouted. “You didn’t see her face when she told me, like the cat that ate the canary. Are you the canary or am I? That’s the question you need to ask yourself.”

“You don’t know her like I do.”

He turned away, and I watched him, stunned. How did we get here?

Kate, that’s how.

Earlier tonight, in the waiting room, he couldn’t bear the idea of losing me. And now?

His back was to me, and his face was in his hands, and I realized: he was crying. I’d never seen that from him before.

Tentatively, I approached him and placed my hand on his convulsing back. When he didn’t resist, I put my arms around him, and he practically collapsed against me, sobbing.

“I can’t trust anyone,” he said. “No one at all.”

“You can trust me.” His body was pressed to mine, and I could feel him trembling. I didn’t like that he was crying that way, but I was glad that it was over me. “I’m sorry that I put us in this position, but I’ll make it right.”

“How?”

“I won’t let her do anything to hurt you. Because hurting you kills me. I love you so much, Michael. It’s been so hard not to have you all to myself these past two years, and I leaned on her when I shouldn’t have. It was a terrible mistake. But I’ll make it right.”

I felt his sobs quieting, his body growing still.

“Forgive me,” I whispered. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

“No one,” he whispered back, “does anything.”





CHAPTER 23





LUCINDA


I’d continued to leave messages on Mom’s cell and her work voice mail. I did my best to let her know that I was genuinely sorry and increasingly scared. Even if she chose not to ever speak to me again, could she please just let me know she was alive? She could have relapsed. She could be in some strange man’s house with a needle sticking out of her arm, like the bad old days. “You don’t have to call,” I said, “just text.”

So far, nothing.

I’d gotten in my car several times, intending to drive to her house, but I couldn’t turn the key. I was afraid of the most likely scenario: My own mother was ignoring me. She liked that I was worried about her; she wanted me to suffer. She hated me for what I’d done. And I understood that, I really did.

I’d been losing weight steadily since I first heard from her, and in the last session, Dr. Baylor told me that I needed to focus on my self-care. So tonight, I was making a tofu stir-fry with lots of vegetables. The smell of the sesame oil was nauseating, even as my stomach rumbled with hunger. My cell phone was on the battered counter next to me in the aged kitchen with avocado-colored appliances. The wooden cabinets were in a state of disintegration, half of them falling off their hinges. The oven barely worked, topping out at four hundred degrees. Our landlord was disinclined to do any repairs or upgrades when he could already command outrageous rents for each of the three apartments in this decrepit Victorian in Berkeley, and given that there was rent control, he was probably eager for us to depart so that he could raise it even more on the next tenants.

I was hoping that all my roommates would stay gone for the next half hour. If they came home while I was cooking, I clearly had more than enough, and it would be rude not to offer them a plate. Then I’d be stuck with a dinner companion I didn’t want, with my head full of thoughts I’d never share. There was nothing objectionable about my roommates, but I hadn’t moved in to make friends; I just couldn’t afford even a studio apartment on my salary.

A few more minutes and the stir-fry would be cooked through. Then I could take it up to my room and gobble it down, undisturbed. Though who was I kidding, I felt nothing but disturbed these days. My only respite was when I thought of Dr. Baylor and imagined him thinking of me. I replayed that conversation I overheard between him and his girlfriend, and I wondered. And fantasized. And escaped, albeit briefly.

My phone rang. I saw the name and lunged for it, spatula clattering to the floor. “Hi, Blythe!” I said. “Thanks so much for returning my call!”

“Hey, stranger!”

Blythe was in her forties, one of the women Mom used to sponsor. They became good friends, and she’d been like a second mother to me. While I was relieved to hear the warmth in her voice, it was an indication that she wasn’t in the loop. She didn’t know what I’d done.