are your daughters?” he asks. “Gaia, no? Coco? That’s their names?”
His eyes flick over a photograph of the two girls on a shelf behind Tom. Beautiful girls. So little.
Tom studies his fingernails. “They’re fine,” he says. “I have a nanny. She cares for them. And a housekeeper.”
Erik leans in. “I don’t mean are they getting food on the table and clean clothes,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, how are they? Without their mother? Only gone a matter of months. It must be hard. For you as well.”
Tom’s throat is burning now. He swallows back the anger that has shot into him and nods.
“It is hard,” he says softly. “They miss their mother very much.”
“And you?” Erik says, with kindness in his voice.
Tom rubs his eyes. He’d prefer not to talk about this, not to open up. His mother still e-mails quotes from Marcus Aurelius, and occasionally his brother will text asking after the build. Few people ask him how he is.
“I’m fine,” he says.
Erik says nothing. It’s a crap answer to give to anyone, let alone another widower. That’s what he is, he remembers. A widower. The term changes nothing.
“I don’t know how I am,” he says. “Grateful? Yes. I’m grateful.” Erik looks confused, so Tom elucidates. “I have two beautiful girls. And I had ten years with the most incredible woman I have ever met. Or ever will meet.” He picks up his glass of vodka and drains it to steady the wobble in his voice.
“If I can give a word of advice,” Erik says gravely.
Oh, please, yes, Tom thinks. Definitely give me advice, I can think of nothing I’d like more.
“Don’t work too hard,” Erik says. Tom waits. Was that the advice? Or was there something in between that he missed? He blinks. Yes, he realizes. That was the advice.
“Don’t work too hard,” he repeats, trying to pluck the meaning out of those words.
“When Siv died,” Erik says, his voice breaking, “I threw myself into work. It was my savior. But then one night I had too much time on my hands and . . . it all hit me. Everything I’d avoided. All the grief in one go.” He shakes his head, fixing his pale eyes on Tom. “I keep a gun in my bottom drawer. I took it out that night. I had one bullet. And I almost used it.” He leaves a long pause for that to sink in. “Those precious girls of yours need you to be OK.” A warm smile. “And you need you to be OK. So . . . don’t work too hard. Take the time to recover. OK?”
“OK,” Tom says, and he smiles to indicate he has taken it all to heart, that he is absorbing the counsel of wise words offered by a man who has walked the path he is on, the path of burning coals and searing flesh. But he lets the words roll off him, discarding them.
Without work, he will drown.
18
the attic
NOW
Now, lean forward and put all your weight on your palms. That’s it. A little more. Feet off the ground.”
I was in crow pose—or bakasana—which means I had both hands planted on the floorboards of Derry’s bedroom, my legs bent at the knees and my feet kicking up behind me a foot or so off the ground. It sounds weird because it is weird, especially if you have the biceps of an office worker, which is to say—none.
“Hurrah!” Derry said, clapping. A second later I keeled forward and landed flat on my face.
“Whoopsadaisy,” Derry laughed, helping me upright. “Well done. Why don’t we try some of the easier asanas? Legs outstretched, like this.”
I tried to copy her on my mat—one of Derry’s—but as I raised my arms in the air my sleeves started to roll down. Derry had insisted on loaning me yoga pants—(“green, the color of the heart chakra!”)—and a top, but I had panicked a little at this. The sleeves had very loose cuffs, and I definitely did not want Derry seeing my scars.
I clutched the hems of the sleeves with my fingers and held them tightly.
“Fingers spread wide,” Derry encouraged. “Right inside the center of your palms is a circle of energy. Let it flow, Sophie. Let the energy dance.”
I tried this, but immediately the sleeves began to slide down my arms. I stood upright, embarrassed. “I think I’ve . . . hurt my shoulder,” I lied.
Derry gave me a look of concern. She pressed her palms and feet together