Part of your world, p.21
Part of Your World, page 21
She tossed her phone on the sofa and sat next to it. “So why are you here? I guess the dinner didn’t go well?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “My dad disowned Derek.”
She blinked at the side of my face. “Like, actually?”
I let out a long breath. “Like in every sense of the word. Derek’s dead to him.”
She sat back into the sofa. “Wow,” she breathed. “That’s so medieval.”
“And I think I have to go to couple’s counseling with Neil.”
“Eww, why?!” She looked horrified.
“Because if I don’t, Dad’ll never let it go.”
She scoffed. “He’ll never let it go anyway. Nothing short of getting back with Neil is going to be good enough. Your dad will just keep moving the goalpost. It’ll be all ‘well, you didn’t go long enough’ or ‘you didn’t take it seriously enough.’ Your dad’s a monster. Why don’t you just tell him no?”
“I can’t. It’ll just make it worse for Mom.”
It would make it worse for me.
“And? Did it ever occur to you that your dad is just as emotionally abusive as Neil? That maybe you learned to put up with Neil because from the earliest age you were taught that to be loved you had to placate an asshole?”
“He’s my dad, Bri.”
I shook my head, staring wearily into the room. “Imagine never seeing your parents again because you fell in love with someone,” I said quietly.
“Do you think Derek knew this would happen?” she asked.
I nodded. “I do. I think he married Lola knowing exactly what he might be giving up.” I let out a breath. “I think you’re right. I need to stop seeing Daniel.”
She studied me. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really.”
We sat in silence for a minute.
“I don’t really know what to say to you right now to make you feel better,” she said. “All my ideas are scary.”
I snorted.
“I’m serious. I’m a wartime consigliere. All I have for you are detailed revenge plots and alibis. But I’m telling you right now, if we kill Neil, you’re the one digging the hole. I’ll lie for you in court, I’ll help you move the body, but I did not put myself through med school to dig.”
I laughed dryly.
“By the way,” I said, “Daniel finally sent me a dick pic. A really good one.”
“Ooooooh, can I see it?”
“No, definitely not.”
She jabbed a finger at me. “See?! You do like him! That was a test and you failed!”
“How did I—because I won’t show you a penis sent to me in trust?”
“Dick pics are community property unless you’re staking a claim on the guy who owns it. You’ve got a little flag that you just planted on Daniel’s peen, it’s waving in the breeze and it says Ali on it.”
I was laughing now.
“You can see alllll my dick pics. Those boys throw ’em around like ‘And you get a penis, and you get a penis, and YOU get a penis!’”
I choked and we both laughed for a minute.
Then I sighed. “Why is everything so hard?”
“Because you have too many fucks to give.”
“Ha-ha.”
“No, I’m serious. Give up some of your fucks and see how much easier things are. You’re just spending all your time trying to please everyone else, and it’s making you miserable.”
I shook my head. “How am I supposed to not care if my parents ever speak to me again? Or if my dad thinks I’m a complete waste of his DNA? I’m already the weakest link in Montgomery history. I have to give a fuck. I have no choice.”
She shook her head. “Imagine being a whole-ass doctor and having your family be like, ‘why are you so disappointing?’”
I blew out a tight breath. “I mean, it’s not like Daniel was going to work out anyway. Everything you said earlier was true. I can’t move, he can’t move. My dad is just the icing on the cake. Ending it was inevitable. I just don’t understand why ending something that hopeless feels so shitty.”
“Because it’s not on your terms. None of this is.”
I wiped under my eyes.
She scoffed. “You’re gonna hate sitting in couple’s counseling with Neil.”
I groaned. “A thousand dollars says he has the therapist completely fooled.”
“You should make him go to yours. That way she can call bullshit.”
I picked my head up and looked at her. “You know what? That’s actually genius.” I smiled. “I just got an idea.”
She grinned. “What?”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Neil.
He picked up on the first ring. “Ali?”
It annoyed me how much hope was in his voice.
“Hi, Neil. We’re going to do a little trust exercise.”
“Okay…” he said.
“For the next four months you’re going to see a therapist. My therapist. You. By yourself. You’re going to tell my parents that I’m going with you—”
“Why would I—”
“Shhhhh! I’m talking and you’re listening. I’m going to give her permission to talk to you about anything I’ve talked to her about, so you’ll have all the insight you need into why we’re not together. You will tell my parents that we’re in couple’s counseling. And at the end of the sixteen weeks, provided you haven’t thrown me under the bus to Dad and you’ve gone to all sixteen sessions—and I will need proof that you’ve gone to these sessions—I will agree to start going to therapy with you.”
He was silent on the other end.
“You want me back so badly, this is your big chance. And it’s also my final offer.”
More silence.
“Okay,” he said. “Yes, I agree. Thank you.”
“Fine.”
I hung up on him.
Bri was looking at me with wide eyes. “WOW. Maybe you’re the wartime consigliere.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe he agreed to it.”
“He had to. He’s lost control. His other strategies aren’t working,” I said.
“Do you think he’ll actually do it?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I’m leaning toward no.”
“And if he does?”
I shrugged. “Then Mom and I get a four-month mental health break? And then I end up doing what I think I’m going to end up having to do anyway, which is to pretend to work on our relationship?”
She let out a resigned sigh. “Oh, Ali.”
“It’ll be good for him if he goes,” I said. “He needs therapy.”
“What he needs is Jesus.”
I laughed. Then my smile fell.
“You know what’s weird? Daniel is only twenty-eight and he has his life figured out. Shouldn’t I have my life figured out by now? I should, right?”
“I bet his life isn’t figured out either. Nobody’s is. I thought mine was, and look how that turned out.”
I peered over at her. She was looking at her hand, twisting a ring around her pinky finger.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Define okay. Benny’s getting worse. I can’t do anything to help him. My marriage has failed, and I can’t even find a guy decent enough to have casual sex with. I’m bored and alone all the time, living in my mom’s crappy house.”
She went quiet for a moment. “I just want one of us to be happy. Why can’t we be happy?”
I sighed. “What does happy even look like, Bri? I fall in line and do what’s expected of me, give up Daniel, but I get to keep my family? Or I give it all up, become the shame of the Montgomery legacy, lose my dad, devastate my mom, but I get the boy I like? Which one is happy?”
She shrugged. “It’s easy. It’s whichever one you can’t live without.” She looked at me earnestly. “But I’ll be there for either scenario. I’ll always be there.”
I studied her face gratefully.
Bri was amazing. She didn’t deserve what happened with her ex or what was happening with her brother. She deserved everything and more.
“Maybe we should both quit Royaume,” I said.
She laughed. “Quit men too. Move in together and start a YouTube channel where we day drink and rate bread.”
I laughed and leaned over and hugged her. “I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too,” she said with her chin over my shoulder. “But I’m still not digging the hole.”
Chapter 27
Alexis
When I’d seen Neil this morning in the kitchen, he tried to do the thing where he puts a tender knuckle to my cheek, like my counseling offer was some meaningful moment of forgiveness from me. I smacked his hand off me and grabbed the Keurig from the kitchen, marched it to my bedroom, and locked the door.
I had to come back down a minute later to shove coffee pods into the pockets of my robe, so the gesture lost a little momentum, but I think the message was pretty clear. If he wanted to talk, he could talk to me in four months after he’d jumped through all my hoops—which I half expected him to not do. But at least it would get Dad off my back long enough for me to breathe.
Now it was almost seven o’clock and dark already, and I was twenty minutes away from Wakan.
I’d lost a patient today.
I lost patients all the time. It was the nature of the work I did. But this one bothered me more than usual.
I felt eerily numb afterward, like I’d officially hit my capacity to process crappy things. The dinner with my parents, Derek’s disownment, deciding to end it with Daniel—it was all too much. I hoped the emotional disconnect lasted. I just wanted to get through my last night with Daniel in one piece and ugly cry when I got home.
I listened to Lola’s fifth album on the way down. It was sad. The whole thing reminded me of Jewel’s song “Foolish Games.” Made me wonder what Lola had been going through when she wrote it.
Sometimes I tried to line up her albums with what I could find about her online. There was a rumor she had been dating one of her backup dancers around the time she recorded this. Maybe it had to do with him.
I think Lola had a hard life. I hoped it was easier with my brother in it. I bet it was. No—I knew it was. Because I knew how much my brother must love her, and when my brother loved someone, he did it with all of himself.
I hadn’t talked to Derek since he left. There was a twelve-hour time difference with Cambodia, and he was in a rural part of the country where phone access was hard. But I could feel my brother, and I knew he could feel me. I was sending him and his wife so much love.
If Derek said Lola was worthy, she was. Simple as that. His word was all I needed. I wished it was that way for our dad, that I could just show up with someone like Daniel and Dad would know immediately that he must be exceptional if I’ve brought him home.
But my father didn’t measure people that way.
It was funny that someone as horrible as Neil could have Dad’s respect, and someone as good as Daniel never would. All because Daniel didn’t have the right education or job or family.
My brother was a cautionary tale. Not about disobeying my father. But about falling in love with someone he didn’t approve of, that made disobeying him necessary.
When I got to the Grant House, Daniel was waiting for me outside like he always did. He didn’t have Chloe. She’d gone back to the farm yesterday since she was off the bottle.
Change was inevitable. Only today it made me deeply, deeply sad.
I sat in my car for a moment longer than usual just to take it in—because it was the last time Daniel and Hunter would be waiting for me.
When I got out, Hunter plowed into me, then Daniel came at me with the same energy, wrapping me in one of his big bear hugs. They were both always so excited to see me.
Neil had never greeted me like this. Maybe it was a maturity thing. I remembered what Bri said about men being puppies at this age, and it felt true. Daniel had this pure happiness about him every time I showed up.
I closed my eyes and breathed in and just melted into his kiss.
He pulled away enough to look at me. “You ready for dinner?” he asked. “I thought we could walk over. It’s a nice night.”
I peered up at his smiling face and sniffled. “Yeah. Let’s walk.”
He tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He peered at me, his warm hazel eyes looking into my soul. “It doesn’t feel like nothing.”
“I lost a patient today.”
His handsome brows drew down. “What happened?”
I paused a moment. “It was a seventeen-year-old. His kayak flipped. No life jacket.”
Daniel studied me wordlessly.
“You know what’s so dangerous about drowning?” I said, looking up at him. “It’s silent. So unless someone’s paying close attention to you, no one saves you.”
He brushed my hair off my forehead. “I see you. I would save you if you were drowning.”
It was sweet, but he wouldn’t. Because I wasn’t drowning here with him. I was drowning two hours away from here, alone.
“Let’s go eat,” I said, changing the subject.
He nodded. “Okay. Let me just put Hunter inside, and we’ll get going.”
A few minutes later we turned onto the bike trail that went to Main Street, and Daniel threaded his fingers in mine.
“So how was your day?” I asked, wanting to talk about anything that wasn’t me.
“Well, let’s see,” he said, talking to the trail ahead of us. “Hunter ate a ChapStick. Kevin Bacon got out again. This time, he let himself into the pharmacy and ate all the candy bars by the register. Scared the crap out of Mrs. Pearson.”
I laughed weakly. “Doug isn’t going to eat him, is he?”
He shook his head. “No. Doug’s a vegetarian.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Really?”
“Yup. Doesn’t drink either. Kevin Bacon has a long life of frightening the villagers ahead of him.”
I laughed.
“Then I spent some time down by the river,” he said.
“Swimming?”
“No. Too cold still. I was looking for something for you, actually,” he said, letting go of my hand to dig in his pocket.
He pulled out something and put it in my palm. It was a rock about the size of a walnut, smooth and gray.
“It’s shaped like a heart,” he said. “Took me two hours to find it.”
My heart disintegrated. It broke from the inside out and crumbled in my chest.
I loved it. I loved it more than I’d ever loved anything.
It wasn’t flashy. It cost him nothing but his time—but that was the gift. Daniel didn’t have time. That was his most valuable commodity right now, and he’d given it to find me this?
It made my chin quiver. It felt like the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me, which was ridiculous because it was just a rock.
When I didn’t say anything, he spoke. “I’m sorry. It’s dumb. I thought you might—”
“I love it so much. I love it so much I don’t even know what to say.” I blinked up at him with tears in my eyes.
He looked almost hopeful. “You like it? Really?”
“I love it. Thank you.”
This gentle, thoughtful, sweet boy.
I reached up and hugged him, and he folded around me like he always did. Only there was something almost rooted about his arms this time, like he was trying to keep me from drifting off.
Or sinking.
I was always going to keep this gift. Even if I married someone else. I would keep it until the day I died.
I had an eerie premonition of relatives going through my belongings after my funeral, just like we’d done a few weeks ago for Aunt Lil. They’d find this rock and wonder why it was in the single shoebox I’d taken with me to the retirement home.
I wondered how many of the little trinkets I’d found in Aunt Lil’s box were like this. The remnants of small moments in her life that stayed with her forever. Proof of a thumbprint on her soul.
It’s amazing how someone can touch you, even if you only know them for a moment in time. How they can change you, alter you indelibly.
Daniel had altered me. I was already better for knowing him. Which made leaving him all the more bitter.
I pulled away and wiped at my eyes, and Daniel looked at me gently before taking my hand again.
When we got to the VFW, there was a sign out front that said CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY. Daniel stopped me at the door. “Okay, so I need to warn you about something.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t totally honest getting you here. They wanted me to keep it a secret. There’s a little thing in there for you.”
I pulled my face back. “What thing?”
He didn’t answer me. He just opened the door and led me inside.
The place was packed. It looked like standing room only. And when they saw me come in, everyone started to cheer and clap.
A big sign hung over the bar: THANK YOU, DR. ALEXIS.
I blinked at the room with my hands over my mouth. “Daniel, what is this?”
Liz, Doreen, Doug, Pops—everyone was here.
Then Emelia and Hannah cut through the crowd. Hannah had the baby in her arms, and I knew instantly what this was about.
Daniel leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Something about the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck? Emelia had a nurse on a video call through the delivery. She said you saved Lily.”
I started to tear up.
I got thanked often in my line of work. But never by an entire town.
Hannah smiled at me as she approached, and hands were slapping me on the back and people were grinning at me and clapping.
It filled me up. It was like all the things my dad and Neil drained out of me, these people tried to put back. They dropped love and appreciation and acknowledgment into my empty well, one smile and thank-you at a time.
“We just wanted to say thank you,” Hannah said, smiling. “Lily might not be here if you didn’t come.”
I wiped under my eyes. “It was my pleasure to be here.”
“Do you want to hold her?” Emelia asked.
I sniffed and nodded. “Can I?”
