“Come on.” I pull him by his wrist toward the living room, where I sit cross-legged on the floor. I pat the couch behind me. He obeys. “Now, watch how it’s done.”
I slowly braid my own hair as I give a step-by-step explanation of my motions. Then, I undo it and start again, and again. By the third braid, I go into the mechanics of French braiding.
“Got it?” I ask, undoing my last one.
“Sure.”
“Great. Show me.”
He didn’t seem to expect having to practice, but he doesn’t complain, either. Instead, he lifts my hair from my nape onto his thighs, so softly it sends shivers down my neck. I close my eyes. Having someone play with my hair has always been my catnip. Every Tuesday night for years, when Keira would be at soccer practice and my father would be at work, I would lie with my head in Mom’s lap, and she would play for an hour while we watched the latest Desperate Housewives episode she’d recorded for us.
“Your hair is smoother than Zoe’s,” he says. He has a point that I barely have any texture in my hair while Zoe’s curls make for the perfect canvas for hairstyling.
“Trying to find excuses?”
He tugs at the braid in warning, then starts again.
“Isn’t it relaxing?” I ask. “I used to do this for my patients, when they were still in labor or had just delivered and had their hair in their face. I think I liked it as much as they did.”
“Do you miss it?” Eli asks, not stopping his movements behind my head.
We haven’t talked about the reason for my leave, but even if he hasn’t said so, I know he’s connected the dots and figured out the big lines. He’s always been able to read me, and the tenderness with which he asks the question tells me he still does.
“Yes and no.” I tug my knees to my chest and lean a little closer to him as he gets to the end of his braid. “I miss being with patients and feeling helpful, but I don’t miss the way I felt before leaving. I hated the constant jealousy.” I’m hopeful that when I return in a week, the break will have done me some good. So long as I’m functional again, I’ll be fine.
Eli lays the braid on my shoulder, so carefully I barely feel it. I look at the swirl of blond highlights and brown, then swing it backward. “Start again,” I whisper.
He undoes his work. Even without seeing him, I know he’s focused on every word I’m saying, like he’s inhaling it all to make sure he doesn’t miss a part. I used to think he had a remarkable memory, before I realized he just has a talent for listening.
“You do know everything you were—are—feeling is legitimate, right?”
“Does it make a difference? It’s not who I want to be.”
A beat passes before he asks, “So, will you go back?”
“It’s my job.” I’ve been in the department almost as long as I’ve been a nurse. To me, itisnursing. “And I do love it.” Or at least I used to, and I refuse to believe that my diagnosis will steal yet another thing from me.
“That’s good. So long as you take care of yourself, too.”
It’s so strange to hear those words for the first time at my age. It makes my stomach buzz with the same exhilarating feeling I had when I laid in his lap last weekend. So many firsts at a time I thought I’d never experience any more.
Eli wraps the elastic band I’d handed him at the end of the braid, then shows it to me again. This time, I stand and go to the mirror. He appears behind me as I examine it.
“A little less criminal.” I tuck a strand he forgot inside one of the holes. He didn’t separate the three sections equally, so the braid is clunky in parts, but overall, it works. “We’re at a misdemeanor level now.”
“You’re the worst, you know that?” he says, his expression saying the opposite.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Good.”
God, that word out of his mouth will be the death of me one day.
I keep the braid, liking that I’m wearing something he’s made. When we were younger and would spend the night watching a movie, I’d sometimes get the scent of his soap on my shirt, and I’d smell it repeatedly throughout the day. It felt like I’d left with a part of him.
I go to the kitchen, then wrap the leftover cookies in the waxed paper and bring them to my purse. “I’m leaving with my disasters.”
“Don’t. I’ll make you some.”
