"Hey, babe, you missed all the previews and the first horrible murder," Ronnie said, coming into the kitchen.
Caitlin, seated on one of the bar stools, waved him into silence, murmuring, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's perfectly reasonable. No, of course not," into her phone.
Ronnie frowned.
"Well, nobody expects you to. Iris, I need a moment, okay?" She waited for the response before muting her phone.
"You're talking to Iris?"
"It's Eddie's birthday."
"Cait. I'm only home for two more days, and tomorrow night we're hanging out with Cisco and Barry and last night we went to dinner and - "
"I know, I know," she said, getting up and opening the microwave. She'd been on popcorn duty. She ripped the bag open, dumped it in the bowl, and gave it to him along with the season salt and a quick kiss on the lips. "And I will watch the movie with you, and I will pretend to be scared and jump in your lap so you can grope me, but Ronnie. It's Eddie's birthday."
He scrunched up his face. "Well," he said. "Well, is it going to take long?"
"I don't know. Look, just pause the movie and watch the game or something."
"It's the off-season. No games."
"There's got to be like, Czechoslovakian bear wrestling or something on that cable package. It's got enough channels."
He rubbed a hand over his hair. "Okay. All right. You … talk to Iris. Let me know when you're done." He took the popcorn bowl with him out of the room. In the doorway, he paused and turned back. "Uh. Let her know I, uh, hope she feels better."
Caitlin smiled at him and unmuted her phone. "Hey, I'm back."
"I forgot Ronnie was home this weekend. I'm sorry."
"Nooooo," Caitlin said. "Do not be sorry. Ronnie being home doesn't make it any less Eddie's birthday."
"Yeah, but you guys don't get a whole lot of time together anymore."
Caitlin crept over to the door in between the kitchen and the living room and peeked around the corner. Ronnie was flipping through channels. As she watched, he found a soccer game in - was that Tagalog?
She went back to her stool and hunched down on it, putting her body between the phone and the living room. "It's funny, with Ronnie," she said in a low voice. "He doesn't seem to really get it that as far as I knew, he was dead, and I grieved for him, and I was trying to put my life back together and start moving forward again when he came back. I think if it was up to him, the whole last eighteen months or so would just - " She fluttered her fingers, forgetting Iris couldn't see her. "Go away. Like it never happened."
"It did, though. It happened." Iris's voice went thick. "It all happened."
"I know." Caitlin drew pictures with her fingertip on the breakfast bar. "Eddie happened."
"I saw somebody the other day that I hadn't talked to since before I met him - she has something against Facebook, I don't know - and we're doing the whole 'hi, how are you doing, what's new' thing and she's like, 'So are you seeing anybody?' And I thought, oh my god. She doesn't know. She never met Eddie, she never heard about him, she - to her he doesn't - " Her voice trembled. "He doesn't even exist. He never existed."
"What did you do?"
"I don't know. I don't know what I said. Probably something stupid. Then I went to my car and cried."
"Oh, Iris."
"It's been months. I thought things were getting better and then something like that happens."
"It's not a progression. Those stages of grief, they make it sound all nice and measured and stair-steppy. The truth it's like white water rapids, and sometimes you can float along on the peaceful river and sometimes you turn a corner and you get sucked under again."
Iris was quiet a moment. "You've been white-water-rafting?"
"My therapist actually told me that, but I thought it was a good description."
"Yeah. That was definitely a sucked-under moment." She sighed. "I knew today was going to be bad, at least. I wasn't surprised."
"At times, it can help - " Caitlin paused, biting her lip. Iris had told her a few weeks ago that she sometimes sounded like a pamphlet on grieving. "Would it help if you talked about last year? His birthday, last year, I mean?"
"Focus on the good times? My positive memories?"
Caitlin didn't say anything.
"That was snotty," Iris said.
"Yes," Caitlin agreed.
Iris laughed, a sound like a twig cracking. "I don't - He had to work that day. He wasn't going to, but he took somebody's shift because - god, I don't remember. I was disappointed because I wanted to cook a birthday dinner for him. But then I got called in, too, so that was okay, I guess."
It wasn't exactly what Caitlin had been hoping for. No perfect, sunny day spent on the water or at the park. No warm and peaceful memory to soothe her friend. Still, she said, "Did you celebrate later? Another day?"
"We meant to, but something happened with Barry - " Iris fell silent, gulping. She'd told Caitlin all about what Eddie had said when they'd briefly broken up just before his death, that there had always been three people in the relationship. While Caitlin had wanted to bring Eddie back from the dead so she could kick him in the shins for putting it like that, in that context, she'd thought, Well, he wasn't wrong.
"He understood," Caitlin said swiftly. Who cared if it was a lie? "I guarantee it."
"I - I brought him a cupcake," Iris said. "Wow. I just remembered that. I brought a cupcake from Jitters to the station, after my shift. I was going to leave it at his desk and go home, but he came in from patrol and I figured, well, why not, so I lit a candle and made him blow it out, and all the guys sang 'Happy Birthday' with really dirty lyrics and embarrassed the crap out of him." She was quiet for a moment. "That was his last birthday. With me. A day-old cupcake and getting embarrassed at work."
"He loved it," Caitlin said. "He loved you."
Iris sniffled. "Do you think if he'd never met me - "
They'd been through this. Caitlin said sternly, "What's the answer to that?"
"He loved me, and it was worth it," Iris parroted. "And it was his choice, and it was worth it. And if he were here, and it was that moment again, he'd make that choice again. The fucking moron."
"Yep," Caitlin said, because Ronnie had gone into the pipeline. The fucking moron.
They were quiet for a moment. Caitlin could hear some excited yelling in Tagalog from the other room, and Ronnie going, "Yeeaaah!" Of course. Even in a language he'd probably never heard in his life, he found somebody to root for. Probably the underdogs.
"Does this ever get better?"
"I'm probably the wrong person to ask that. Given that the man I was grieving is sitting in my living room eating all the popcorn and rooting for a Filipino soccer team."
Iris didn't even ask. "Tell me yes. Even if it's not true."
"Do you really want to hear that this pain goes away? Do you want to hear that someday, it'll heal like it was never broken?"
"No," Iris said in a small, shaky voice.
Caitlin nodded to herself. "It will never stop hurting," she said. "Even me, even now, it hurts if I think about it. But it won't be this - this gaping wound forever. Someday it'll be a scar. And that scar, just it being there, that's how you'll know that Eddie existed. You'll always know."
Iris's breath sounded shaky in her ear. Caitlin thought she was probably crying.
"Oh, god, did I make it worse?"
"No," Iris sobbed. "No. You didn't."
"Do you want me to come over?"
"That's okay."
"That's okay as in, yes come over, or no, I don't want to bother you, or - "
"That's okay as in, no, because I'd kind of like to be quiet and think right now."
"Okay," Caitlin said, still not completely convinced she hadn't made things worse. "Promise you'll call me back if you need to talk some more. Or if you don't want to talk to me, call your dad, or Cisco, or - "
"Barry?"
"You think you're ready to talk to Barry again?"
"I miss him," Iris said.
"I know."
She let out her breath in a huff. "Yes, I promise, I will call someone. Thanks, Caitlin."
"Anytime. You know that."
"I really, really do. Okay. Bye."
"Bye."
She checked her phone's battery, decided it could last for the rest of the evening, and tucked it in her pocket. When she went in the living room, Ronnie looked up. "Hey. Is she feeling better?"
Caitlin shrugged. "I talked her through it." She dropped onto the couch and curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.
His arm came around her, heavy and warm. "Okay. Ready for Chainsaw Mayhem Part IV?"
"If it's okay, I don't think I am," Caitlin said, peering up at him.
His face fell briefly, but whatever he saw in her eyes made him give her a little one-armed hug. "Okay. Next time."
"Why don't you tell me about the game? Who are we rooting for?"
"The guys in purple."
Caitlin squinted at the screen. Yep. The guys in purple were about as far down as it was possible to be. Total underdogs. "Who's their best player?"
"Uh - the big guy. See him? Over there, top left of the screen. I'm thinking he's the team captain and it's his first season as team captain, and - "
As he rambled on, she soaked in the warmth of his body and the steady thump of his heart against her cheek. He was alive, he was here. If someone had told her a year ago, she would be snuggling up to her husband and listening to him make up stories about players halfway across the world, she would have - well, it probably wouldn't have been pretty.
Still, she thought, it had happened. That terrible year, mired in grief, aching with emptiness. It had left a scar, and Ronnie being back didn't erase that scar, no matter how much he wanted to think it did.
She was a little glad about that.
FINIS