“About two years ago, right after Emmy got her job at the hospital, I decided I didn’t want to waste another nickel on myself and my stupid spending habits. I retired and liquidated everything. I scraped together every penny I had and put it in a trust fund for Emmy. On the day I die, she was supposed to get millions. I wanted it all to go to her.” He broke down again, and it took him a moment to say, “I never expected to outlive her. How is something like this even fair?”
It wasn’t.
After I walked Mr. Adams to the center’s dining room for dinner, I thanked him and headed home. It was late, and smelling the food in the dining room seemed to help my appetite find its way back to me after its recent hiatus. I think it went to Scotland.
Mr. Adams was a wonderful man, and I would be checking on him every time I came to see Mrs. Allen.
11
If one door closes and another one opens,
your house is probably haunted.
—BUMPER STICKER
I walked into the apartment knowing full well Mr. Farrow was there. I felt him as I was walking up the stairs even though we now had an elevator.
After putting my bag down, I sought him out. “I think we should talk about what’s going on.”
He almost looked up from his desk. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. That’s kind of the problem.”
I wasn’t used to being ignored. Well, actually I was, but not from Reyes, and yet Reyes had been doing that very thing for several days. It was eating at me in the same way a person on bath salts eats at the flesh of others. Strangely and disturbingly.
“Are you seeing someone else?”
I’d shocked him. The look on his face, which I had to rely on because I could no longer decipher his every emotion, told me so. Perhaps that bothered me more than I’d imagined. That I could no longer read him as precisely as I used to. Like an electrical field was fucking with my sensors. Giving me false readings.
“I did have amnesia. I figured you might have found someone else in that time. You know, someone less work and more fun.” My thoughts went to Mrs. Abelson. I’d made fun of her because she was so high maintenance, but maybe I was, too. Maybe Reyes just needed to play video games with his friends and smoke a little weed. To relax. To get over the stress of living with yours truly. I was exactly like her.
“Look, you know if you ever just need to play video games and smoke pot, you can tell me, right?”
“Are you on medication?”
“No. I’m serious. I know … I know I can be a little much at times. I would understand if you just needed a break.”
“Okay. Well, thanks for the offer, but I’m good.”
“Then what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Fine. Okay, then why haven’t we … you know.” I shrugged so he would get the picture.
“Why haven’t we shrugged?”
“No. Had sex. Why haven’t we had sex? I mean, a week ago you couldn’t keep your hands off me and now—oh, my god.” It hit me. In the solar plexus. Hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
“You liked me better as an amnesiac.”
“Did I?” he asked, amused.
“Only you can answer that. Why haven’t you—? Why aren’t you—I?”
“Happy and content? I am.”
I blew a stray hair out of my eyes. “Let me get this straight. You have no intention of telling me what’s wrong. You don’t want to talk about whatever is wrong. And you’re going to let me continue to believe I’ve done something horrible before you’ll open up. Even if, say, I restrain you? Force it out of you?”
“The only thing you are going to force out of me under the confinement of restraints is an orgasm.”
Finally! “So, you’d be open to my restraining you for my own sexual pleasure?”
“Wide open.”
“And, it would be something you’d enjoy?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Then why haven’t we—? I mean, what’s stopping us from—?”
This was getting me nowhere. I wasn’t a shrinking violet. I knew how to speak my mind. A little too well. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used my internal filter. It had been so long, I’d forgotten where I stashed it. But when it came to Reyes Alexander Farrow, I lost all sense of uncouth. I turned couth. It was just so unlike me.
I took a deep breath and started over. “Why haven’t you touched me?”
He reached over and poked my elbow.
“Funny, but you know what I mean.”
“I’m giving you time.”
“Time for what? Origami lessons?”
“I’m giving you space.”
“Space for what? The elephant I’ve been trying to adopt?” I looked around. “He’ll need a pretty big play area.”
“I’m sure.”
“Just tell me what’s bothering you.” Did he know? Did he know he was a god and that I knew he was a god and that I had the only thing in the universe that could trap him for all eternity? Fingers crossed he didn’t.
After a long moment of contemplation, he released the breath he’d been holding. “Nothing is bothering me, Dutch.”
“That’s it,” I said, putting my foot down and girding my loins. Metaphorically. “If you won’t tell me, I’m moving in with Cookie.”
“Again?”
I ground my teeth, stomped to our bedroom, took down an overnight bag, and stuffed it with a toothbrush, a few mismatched articles of clothing, and a nightshirt that read DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT. Then, without another word, I marched to the door, opened it, and had every intention of slamming it so hard the shock wave would shake the building, when I heard him say, “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
Appalled, I stopped mid-swing. Or I tried to. I’d put so much energy into the door thing that it kept coming despite my wishes. Only I’d turned back to Reyes. And that was when my face found yet another object to slam into.
* * *
“I’m moving in,” I said, marching past Cookie when she opened her door.
“Again?”
“I mean it this time, Cook. That man is impossible.” I pointed in the general direction of our apartment in case she didn’t know who I was talking about.