I'm Fine and Neither Are You(21)

“See Cecily?” he said.

I nodded.

“No. I didn’t tell the counselors what happened, either. I’m assuming they don’t know.”

“I’m assuming no one knows yet,” I said. I would need to tell Jael and Sonia. And our hairdresser—my hairdresser, I realized with a jab of sorrow.

“I made coffee,” he said.

He never made coffee—I always beat him to it. But instead of feeling like a victory, it was one more reminder of what was wrong with this day. “Thanks,” I said.

He walked to the kitchen and pulled a mug from the cupboard, which he handed to me. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.

I didn’t look at him as I poured coffee into my mug. I couldn’t. “I don’t know. Hanging in there, I guess.”

“Are you? Because I feel completely shell-shocked.”

Now I glanced up at him with surprise and handed him the coffee carafe. He did look shell-shocked, and in a backward way that was comforting.

“I know we’re all operating on borrowed time, but I never expected—well, something like that to happen to someone like Jenny,” he said as he filled his mug.

“I know,” I agreed. Rationally, I understood that I was lucky it had been her and not one of my children; my worst fear was that I might outlive them. Hell, I was even glad it wasn’t me. Stevie and Miles needed me, and truth be told, Sanjay would be up a creek if he became a widower.

But knowing it could have been worse did not ease my grief—not even a little. Because Jenny hadn’t been felled by an incurable form of cancer. She hadn’t been caught in the line of fire while fighting for our country. Her death had been entirely preventable.

“It just makes me think,” Sanjay added.

I looked at him over the edge of my coffee mug. “About what?”

“Life,” he said, meeting my gaze. “How ridiculously short it is, even if everything goes right.”

How long had it been since we had last locked eyes? Since I had felt like he understood how I felt, and maybe even shared those feelings?

“Maybe it’s too soon for any big decisions, but this . . . it just makes me feel like maybe I should be doing some things differently,” he added.

“Yes,” I said, because I agreed—even if I had no idea yet what those things might be or how they needed to change. I stood at the counter, drinking my coffee in silence as Sanjay did the same. I wondered if he was still thinking what I was thinking.

Which was that it was a crying shame it had taken something so terrible for us to enjoy one lousy connection.

After I had finished my coffee, I picked up my phone. Was I supposed to call Matt? Email or text him? What was the etiquette for reaching out to a newly bereaved person?

I settled on a text. It’s Penelope. Just checking in. How is Cecily?

As soon as I hit “Send,” a wave of nausea came over me—true nausea, like the kind that I got when I was pregnant. Cecily no longer had a mother. Because Jenny was dead. Yet again, it was almost as though I was realizing it for the first time.

Phone in hand, I dashed upstairs to the bathroom. Once I was propped over the toilet, however, I couldn’t even retch; I just kept gulping air and feeling like my heart was seconds from giving out. Was this how Jenny had felt as she was dying? She had looked peaceful, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was at the time. She might have been alert. She might have been in pain. Maybe she even knew those moments were her last.

“Pen?” I could see the shadow of Sanjay’s feet coming through the crack of the bathroom door. “You just bolted back there. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I gasped. As I turned back to the toilet bowl, I spotted the bare toilet paper holder out of the corner of my eye. “Seriously?” I said, even as my stomach continued to roil.

“What is it?” he called.

I had been forced to use paper towel the night before, as we had run through the wipes, and had asked Sanjay to go to the store in the morning. Clearly that hadn’t happened.

It wasn’t worth the fight. “Nothing,” I croaked.

My phone had begun to ring, so I took a deep breath and righted myself. The call was from an unidentified local number, and I immediately wondered if it was about Jenny. Inhale, I told myself. “This is Penelope.” Now exhale.

“Mrs. Kar?”

It’s Ms. Ruiz-Kar, I thought, but at least my nausea had started to let up. “Yes?”

“This is Brittany at Knowledge Arena.”

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m not calling about anything urgent. Miles is fine, though he’s having a bit of a tough time this morning. He seems very tired. Stevie is working on an art project right now.”

Neither child had broken a bone, had suffered a head injury, or was freaking out about the previous night’s events? I was immediately impatient. “ So?”

“Oh,” said Brittany, like she had forgotten why she was calling. “It’s just that neither of your children brought a lunch. We are able to provide a nut-free meal for them, but there’s a fee of fifteen dollars per child. This is a onetime courtesy call. In the future, we’ll simply make them lunch if one isn’t provided and send you the bill.”

“Fifteen dollars ? Are you serving nut-free foie gras?”