I'm Fine and Neither Are You(62)

It was Matt.

I have been thinking about our last conversation and have realized that I need some space. Unfortunately, this means that I’m going to have to put your visits with Cecily on hold for a while. I’ll reach out when I’m ready.

I stared at my phone. I wasn’t sure whether to scream or cry, so I pressed my hands to my face, which was already flushed.

I had done the right thing by being honest and direct.

And now I had to live with the consequences.





TWENTY-FOUR

“You should see a doctor,” said Sanjay. It was the following morning, and he was standing over me with a thermometer in one hand and a bottle of ibuprofen in the other.

“Leave me,” I croaked. I didn’t need my temperature taken to know I didn’t have the flu, or even a cold. I just . . . couldn’t get out of bed.

“Mommy? Are you sick?” Stevie was peering at me from behind Sanjay. She looked worried.

Yes—heartsick, I thought. I didn’t know when I’d be able to see Cecily again, and that was my fault. My father had cancer and didn’t want me to be involved with his treatment—or really, any other part of his life. My husband was attracted to another woman and I was attracted to another man. My harebrained attempt to save our marriage was having the opposite effect.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so hopeless.

Actually—yes, I could. It was the instant I realized Jenny was really and truly dead.

“I’m going to be fine,” I told Stevie. My eyelids were so heavy that I might as well have been sick. “I’ll feel better after I take a nap.”

“You can’t nap in the morning,” said Miles. He looked as concerned as Stevie, and for a moment I wondered if they might be making a connection between my illness and Jenny’s death. The thought flew out of my head as fast as it had landed.

“Watch me,” I said, and fell fast asleep.

When I awoke it was noon and I was alone. I had emailed the office after I woke up that morning to say I wasn’t feeling well and would be out for the day, so I didn’t bother checking my phone. Instead, I drank the glass of water Sanjay had left for me on the bedside table. Then I lay back on my pillow. It was so nice and dark and calm behind my lids; maybe I could stay there for a little while longer.

When I opened my eyes again, Sanjay was stroking my head. “Pen? You okay? You’ve been asleep for hours.”

“What time is it?” I muttered. It was dark out, and I was kind of woozy.

“Almost nine.”

“At night?” I pushed myself into a seated position. “I slept all day ?” I hadn’t done that since—well, ever.

Sanjay nodded. “The kids are fine,” he said, but for once I wasn’t thinking about them. “I’ve been keeping them away from you, though, so they don’t get whatever you have.”

“I’m not sick,” I said.

He grimaced. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, and given the look on your face, thank God.”

“What is it, then?”

I sighed. “I just really don’t feel like living my life right now.” Sanjay looked alarmed, so I quickly added, “I’m not thinking of hurting myself or anything like that. Matt texted last night to say he needed space, and that we would be putting visits with Cecily on hold until he was ready to see me again.”

Sanjay put his hand on my leg. “Oh Penny. I’m sorry. I wish you’d said something.”

“I thought you’d come to bed before I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, I was passed out.” I pushed myself into a sitting position. “I don’t know what you could have said or done to make it better. I’m . . . depressed, I guess.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’ve kind of been waiting for that.”

“You were waiting for me to get depressed?”

“Not clinically, necessarily.”

“You sound like your father right now.”

“Maybe I do. Point being, you haven’t really dealt with your grief, have you?”

“This isn’t about Jenny.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I just told you about Matt. It’s about you and me, too. It’s about my dad. And the fact that everyone keeps asking me what I need to be happy and the truth is I have no idea.”

But this wasn’t true, exactly. I did have an idea. A couple, in fact. And every single one seemed utterly impossible.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

Now he asked me.

“No,” I said. “I want to sleep.”

He looked at me with resignation, but I was too exhausted to try to fix how he was feeling. “Sweet dreams, then.”

“Sanjay,” I called weakly, but he was already gone.



I did not go to work the following day, either, though I did get out of bed before lunch because my stomach was beginning to self-digest and I had a wicked caffeine-withdrawal headache.

When I came downstairs Sanjay was in the kitchen, running a sponge over the counter. He was dressed in another dress shirt and a pair of freshly pressed pants, and it took me a few seconds to remember he had his second interview today.