This Place of Wonder (75)

I laugh. “Thank you.”

Our eyes meet and hold, and it isn’t my imagination that there’s something strong and . . . true . . . between us. Maybe it’s friendship. Maybe it’s finding someone else in the same boat. Or maybe it’s something more. The radar in my body says that whatever it is, right now it’s okay.

The moment stretches, but it’s never awkward. I simply arrive at a place where I ask, “What kind of medicine do you practice?”

“Did practice,” he answers. “Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. Geriatric medicine, but I haven’t done the boards in America.”

“Really? How long have you been here?”

“Almost six years.” His smile is self-deprecating. “It was all a whirl at first, the excitement of the move and being with a celebrity and all the luxury.” He raises a brow. “I found I was as easily swept into it as anyone.”

I nod.

“I was writing on the side in London, and had been modestly successful, so I thought I’d just keep doing that in America, but”—he shrugs—“a year passed and then another and another.”

“I get it.” I tear bread from the loaf and dip it in the soup without thinking, then wonder if he’ll think I’m rude. Instead, he follows suit, nodding. “Do you miss it?”

“Medicine?”

“Yes.”

“I do, but I didn’t realize how much until I was with you at the A&E. The smells, the sound of the machines, the people who need help.” He lifts a shoulder. “Medicine has meaning. Deep meaning. Science is reliable, and powerful.”

“Will you go back to it?”

His expression lightens. “Until yesterday I would have said no. But today, I think the answer is yes.”

I cross my pink-casted arm over my chest and grin. “Because of my arm? That’s so cool.”

He laughs a little, and hair falls on his forehead. “It is.”

The electricity between us is not friendship, and I realize that I’m not entirely playing fair. “I found out something else yesterday,” I say, stirring my soup, sprinkling a little more Parmesan on top. “I’ve been so worried that I’d damaged my liver, the way I’ve been getting sick and all of that. Turns out . . .” I pause.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes. Did you know?”

“I suspected.” His gaze sharpens. “How do you feel about that?”

I take a moment, let it fill me, all the gold light and promise and hope. “So lucky.”

His smile this time is dazzling, showing teeth and the creases by his eyes. “I’m so glad.” He raises his glass again. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” I clink the glass. “I have to see a doctor tomorrow to see how things are and all that, but”—emotion rises through my heart—“it feels like a miracle.”

“And the father?”

My therapist said I didn’t have to tell anybody anything I didn’t want to tell, that my life and my path were mine to share or not share. For a moment, I weigh the possibilities. I could play it off and just claim Josh, or I can tell him the truth.

But I really, really like him, and the potential for something deep is blooming between us. He’s not a vintner or a dude or any of the kinds of men I’ve been with in the past. He’s a physician and a writer who grew up in a Muslim family; even if he hasn’t said if he’s religious, it must have influenced his views of the world to some degree.

Tell the truth.

Honesty is the cornerstone of all I am now. I have to own myself and my life, so I take a breath and speak it. “I don’t know who the father is. It’s kind of a blur, that whole period.”

The light in his eyes dims the faintest amount, and I’m instantly defensive, casting away any thought of connection I had. “People don’t go to rehab for slightly misbehaving,” I say sharply.

He reaches for my hand and captures it. “I know.”

“But you’re judging me.” I pull my hand away.

“You’re right,” he admits, and there’s the slightest roll of his childhood accent amid the British. “I apologize.”

I duck my head. A flush burns up my chest to my cheekbones, and I wish I could snap my fingers and disappear. I wish I could be back in rehab, where somebody would say, Oh, that’s nothing. Let me tell you . . .

“Maya,” he says softly. “I am so sorry. Please don’t banish me, all right?”

I laugh. “Banish you?”

To my surprise, he rounds the table and kneels by the chair, taking my free hand. “Forgive me. I am sometimes at the mercy of a patriarchal society that judges women very harshly.”

I look at him, narrowing my eyes. “Did you actually just say that?”

“I did.”

Everything in me surges toward him. It’s that clean and that simple, and I bend in to kiss the sad mouth that’s so close, smelling pine and hope. For a split second before our lips meet, I’m afraid he’ll be appalled and push me away, but quite the opposite happens. Our mouths lock and he stands, pulling me with him so our bodies are pressing tightly together. My arms wrap around his torso, his around my shoulders and waist, and we fit like Russian dolls. His head tilts and mine tilts the other way and we dive into kissing like it will end climate change. The low-level restlessness I’ve been feeling, that longing for sex, for connection, for skin-to-skin nourishment, rises in a wild current in my body, setting all the circuits to on, my skin rustling to life.