some time to look at it, I don’t think our normal was very healthy.”
We were quiet a long time. I stroked Gerald, and Gabby stroked Max.
“I wasn’t trying to be mean,” I said. “I just don’t think it’s good for me to accept help from him. Remember how you told me to have some self-respect?”
She groaned and pulled her hair over her face. “I’m sorry!”
“No, no, no, you were right. I wouldn’t feel good about myself letting him stay here. Okay?”
He would come here and do barn chores, sure. That was easy. He wasn’t capable of or willing to do the harder work, the work that mattered.
After a long silence, Gabby asked, “Is it even possible? Marriage?”
I laughed, then winced at the pain.
“No, Mom, I’m serious. In Philosophy we just read this ridiculous Plato myth about how for every person there’s a missing other half and you’re never a complete person until you find it. That’s just . . . bullshit. No one person is going to fulfill every single one of your needs. When did everyone start believing this crap? They stand there and say those vows that they’ll cherish each other until they die. And nobody does. Nobody can.”
“Some people can,” I said. “Some people do.”
“Like who?”
“Well, like your uncle Davids.”
“They’re not dead, Mom,” she said, as if I were a moron.
Oh, so by Gabby’s standards, Mimi and Frank had had a successful marriage just because one of them was now buried?
“I’m never getting married,” Gabby said.
I smiled. I used to say that.
“I’m glad you’re not like women who think they’re not complete until they get married,” I said. “That’s why I used to hate it when you talked about your wedding all the time. But why say never? Don’t you think that’s a lonely way to live?”
Gabby gently pulled on Max’s ears. “You think Aurora’s lonely?” she challenged.
She’d caught me. Gabby had once wondered aloud to me if Aurora was lonely and I’d used the “teachable moment” to talk about how Aurora—one of the busiest, most accomplished and interesting women I knew—was content, complete, and unwilling to settle for a man who didn’t enrich her life.
I laughed, then gasped at the pain the laughter produced in my ribs. “No. No, but remember Aurora has never claimed she wants to be single forever. She dates. She’s just not willing to be with any ol’ guy just to be with someone.”
Gabriella shrugged. “Maybe I’ll be like Aurora.”
“Maybe you will. Or maybe someday you’ll find a strong, competent partner—maybe Tyler, maybe someone you haven’t met yet—and you’re going to want to spend your life with him.”
She kept her eyes on Max’s ears. “Maybe.”
“It was good to see Tyler at the hospital with you,” I said. “Are you guys going out again?”
She shot me a look. “We’re friends, okay?”
“Just friends?”
She didn’t answer.
She kept looking at Max, holding his muzzle in her hands, stroking his face with her thumbs. “I miss Dad. I miss us. All of us together, the way we used to be.” Then she said quickly, “I know, I know, you said the way we used to be wasn’t all that hot, but it was . . . it was easier.”
Those words set off a new pulsing ache in my broken ribs.
Chapter Twenty-One
GABRIELLA WAS RIGHT. IT HAD BEEN EASIER TO LIVE WITH blinders on.
Easier . . . but not better.
I found there was more space and light in my thoughts. More room and energy in my head.
I felt as if I’d taken off a blindfold. I didn’t know when, I wasn’t sure why, but it was a blindfold I’d quite deliberately tied into place myself.
Vijay was right: Bobby had done me a favor.
After Vijay had to return to New York, I was touched by visits from his mother. Shivani would bring fresh flowers and massage lotion on my legs, because it hurt to bend.
“You and Vijay are both single now,” she said. “I do not understand this way, this ending.”
“I don’t understand it, either,” I said. “Not really.”
Shivani rubbed lemon-scented lotion into my calves, an act that seemed strangely intimate and made me shy. “We must fatten you up, my girl. I will bring you your favorite.”
“Oh,” I said. “I love your halva.” I longed for it with the fervor of a junkie.
Shivani nodded, businesslike, taking the order. “It should not be,” she said. “The two of you alone.” She tilted her head at me as if trying to read something. I remembered that when Vijay and I were