The Break(62)

My mouth drops. “Dang,” I say, shaking my head a little. “You must be one heck of a shrink.”

I say it just genuinely enough that she can’t honestly tell Louisa I’ve been rude to her. I turn and walk into an opening elevator, and I don’t look back. I can feel her eyes on me.





THIRTY-THREE


Rowan. Friday afternoon. November 11th.


Before I go to my mom’s I stop by Harrison’s. Just Lila and me, no Gabe.

I knock hard on Harrison’s front door. At least Gabe’s starting to let me go places. I got out of the apartment tonight by telling him the phone call was just Mulvahey checking up on my details (which was as truthful as I was willing to get with him), and that all of this with June was too upsetting, and I had to get out of our apartment and go back to my mom’s. I told him everything at the care facility had been so good with my mom and Lila, and that I needed that moment again right now—not this. Gabe pecked my cheek and let me go, but his eyes held the kind of sadness that comes from the person you love accusing you of betrayal of the worst kind. And now that I’ve said it, I don’t know how to take it back, or if I even should. The truth is, I can’t say for sure that Gabe would never sleep with June. But maybe Harrison knows something I don’t.

Harrison opens the door and I step into his airy, spectacular SoHo loft. There are no bedrooms, just a massive rectangle with a gorgeous kitchen and a high ceiling crisscrossed with wooden beams. I put down the oversized bag I packed with everything from diapers and baby pajamas to my laptop and breast pump, and I say, “You look awful.”

He shrugs a broad shoulder. He looks so young when he’s upset, his full lips pouting like a child’s.

“I’m worried about June,” he says, helping me out of my coat. “The cops are coming by later to question me.”

“That might be partly my fault,” I say.

He’s so close to me, helping set my arms free. His hands on me are strong and confident. “Oh, really?” he asks, like he’s trying for lighthearted but not quite getting there.

Harrison notices things that Gabe doesn’t, like how I would obviously need help getting out of a coat like this when I have Lila strapped to me. He hangs my coat on a rack, and then he shuts the door behind me. He locks the chain. Jazz music is playing on his speakers; he used to tell me if he wasn’t representing writers, he’d be repping musicians. I follow him to his living room. I need to put Lila down—I need a break from carrying her around. Even with the carrier in the right position my back is starting to scream. Harrison helps me unload a blanket from my diaper bag and we both kneel and spread it on the floor. I carefully rest Lila on it. I can’t believe she doesn’t wake up.

“She’s so beautiful,” Harrison says.

“She really is,” I say. “I keep marveling at her. All the things everyone says about motherhood are actually true. And then some.”

His face darkens as he stares at her. “But it’s hard, too, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It is. But I keep thinking how amazing it is that she’s her, that the magic of her means that any other month I’d gotten pregnant it would have been with a different baby, not her. It’s strange to recognize that.”

“Life is complicated,” Harrison says, his gaze still so dark. “Do you believe all of us were fated for each other somehow, to be in each other’s lives? Or do you just believe that about Lila?”



It surprises me. “I guess I believe we’re all in each other’s orbits for a reason,” I say. “Not even something metaphysical. Just that obviously we were all drawn to each other.”

A car honks outside, and I imagine the SoHo streets swarming with shoppers.

“Well, I for one am starting to regret that June was a part of my orbit,” Harrison says. His wavy blond hair is mussed like he was just outside in the blustery cold.

“What do you mean?”

“Where did she go, Rowan?” he asks sharply. “What happened to her? Do you think all of this is real?”

“I don’t know what happened to her, same as you,” I say, shaking my head. We’re both still just kneeling on the floor by Lila.

“She was always looking for attention,” Harrison says, his forehead creasing like he’s trying to concentrate, to figure this out. “And I thought that maybe . . . is there a chance she’s pulling something over on us? A trick?”

“They found blood in our building,” I say. “And there’s video footage of her going in and not coming out. So yeah, I’m pretty sure this is real.”

Tears are in my eyes now. Harrison wraps his arms around me and helps me to my feet. “Oh no,” he says, giving me a hug. It feels good to be this close to him. It’s been so many years that he’s been the one looking out for us, mostly for Gabe but also for me. He’s been the one steering our ship, creatively and financially, and I trust him. “What if she’s dead?” he asks, and a slight tremor goes through him. Finally he backs away and he looks unsteady as he makes his way to the sofa. I sit beside him. Maybe too close. But there’s always this thing between us, whenever we’re alone, which isn’t often. I don’t think it’s sexual attraction or anything like that, but it’s almost like a rope connecting us, drawing us closer.