“Welcome to the current dating pool, my friend.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Speaking of which…” Emily’s face turns a beet shade of red, shifting me on alarm right away. The last time I saw that half-guilty, half-pitying face, I was about to get temporarily fired.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, just… I saw Michael at the gym today.”
I swallow. The reason for my loss of interest in the dating pool in the flesh. After he left, I couldn’t imagine starting from scratch with someone else. I’d given everything, and now I was empty. Ifsomeone who’d wanted to marry me could leave, what stranger could want all of me?
“How was he?” A bird caws above me, giving me an excuse to look away. He never stopped using our common gym, even after our breakup. I was the one who had to leave, even though my best friend was still a member there.
“Good. I think…” She twists her lips. “I think he’s met someone.”
I nod. Nod some more. He met someone who can give him what I couldn’t, probably. That thought hurts more than the idea of him with someone else.
“It’s fine.”
“Cassie…”
“It’s okay, I swear.” I smile, hoping it doesn’t look as crazed as I feel. “It’ll all be fine. I’ll get through this month of family stuff, and then I’ll be back like nothing happened.”
In a softer voice, she says, “I don’t think that’s what Sariah had in mind when she asked you to take time off.”
“That’s because I didn’tneedtime off.”
I recognize her next expression all too well. It’s one I’ve received countless times, by doctors, by nurses, and even by Michael. When he walked out of our apartment and out of my life, it wasn’t with anger or with nostalgia. It was with pity.
“You haven’t grieved, Cassie.”
I don’t know if it’s the way she says it, or the word she uses—grief—that instantly makes my vision blurry. She’s not talking about my grandmother, and we both know it.
“Being away won’t change anything.”
“Maybe it will.” She’s still looking at me like I’m two seconds away from breaking. “You weren’t right, before you left. You looked like you hated every second of every shift.”
She’s right. I did. I hated seeing the expectant mothers coming in with their faces twisted in pain as contractions hit, one hand on their belly and the other holding their partner’s. Hated hearing the wails of newborns piercing through the quiet halls during the night. Hated the happiness radiating out of their every pore when I went in the room to take vitals, or to help with breastfeeding techniques. Hated myself for hating it.
But what other choice did I have? Stay home to wallow?
“Maybe you should see this time as less of a punishment and more of a gift. Time to take a step back and see how you feel about everything.”
I know how I feel about my infertility—hopeless. Lost. But she’s made a point. I have a month to get back to a place where I can function in the presence of all these mothers, and if I want to keep the one thing that used to be great in my life, then I need to figure out a way to handle my shit.
“I will,” I say, both to reassure her and to convince myself.
“Good.”
I’m nearing the end of my walk, only a few yards away from Ruth’s home, when motion attracts my gaze.
Eli is pacing in his driveway, wearing what looks to be a chef’s white coat, only halfway buttoned. He’s on his phone, and his free hand is running through his hair. He looks distraught.
I didn’t think to ask him about his job in the past days even though he knows mine, but this wasn’t what I expected. When we were young, he never had plans to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was never decisive in what he wanted to do—an archeologist after he visited the Museum of Natural History during a trip to NYC, a math teacher while he was in the mathletes in middle school, a marine biologist during his ocean phase—but this option never came up.
“Hey, Em, I gotta go, but talk soon, okay?”
She eyes me warily before saying, “Sure. Take care of yourself, babe.”
