Here's another one. : )
Chapter 5
The day after the election, he shows up. It's her fourth night in her new apartment, and she's jolted awake by some noise or movement or flash of light. Heart pounding, she sits up in bed, eyes and ears straining against the quiet, unfamiliar dark. Her gun is in the bedside stand.
There's a soft knocking on the front door, maybe the sound that woke her. It radiates through her chest. She reaches over, holding her breath, to ease the drawer open. The knocking comes again. Then she hears his voice saying her name, and the fear changes.
"Be right there!" she calls, switching on the lamp.
A thought barges in. It's the same thought she had when she found Cady injured and unconscious, eyes open, on the shoulder of the road: She isn't made of sturdy enough stuff to handle what's coming or the way she'll be needed once it's here.
Out of decency or respect or something, she grabs the ratty old grey sweatshirt she tossed on the chair before bed. It's irrational. She's already decent in pajama pants and a T-shirt, and besides, when she opens that door and lets that grief in, it won't matter what she's wearing.
She flips on the porch light and releases the chain and unlocks the dead bolt, and she opens the door to find him on the stoop with his back to her. He's facing the walkway and the borderline of bushes, as though he's on his way out already.
"Where's your jacket?" she whispers, like waking up the neighbors should be of any concern right now.
He turns around, drawn and haggard and fragile with the same lost look in his eyes. He shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe at the hospital."
"We'll find it," she says.
She steps onto the porch and guides him inside by the arm. He's never been here before, but he goes to the couch like he knows the room, even in the semi-darkness. He sits in the same spot he sat in a year and a half ago, when she first arrived and they became entangled in each other's lives.
Her instinct is to buy herself some time by offering him a drink or something to eat. That's how she knows she needs to stay right here. She kneels on the floor in front of him, and she takes his hands in hers and holds them on his lap. They're surprisingly warm for the cold November night.
"I'm here," she says because what else is there to say?
He pulls his hands away and leaning forward, covers his face with them.
She was with him at the hospital until 9:00 when Branch came back. She probably should've stayed for whatever happened after she left, but someone has to be rested enough to work. Plus, nothing was changing—Cady seemed no worse and no better than she'd seemed thirty-six hours earlier. Now that she thinks about it, though, no better actually is worse.
She sits next to him and puts her hand on his broad back. He smells of fresh beer and an undercurrent of older alcohol, like he just downed one before knocking but it wasn't the first of the evening.
It could be a while, and she's okay with that. There's no hurry now. Plus, she's managing so far. As long as there's no talking involved, she can support him. After that she'll have to defer to someone more emotionally capable. Lizzie's a talker, and she's probably a feeler, too. That's who he should be with really.
He lifts his head and wipes first one eye and then the other with the heel of the same hand. He exhales, shuddering.
"It's over," he says, his voice raspy.
She can only do what she can do. Her talents have always been more external than internal. Maybe she can't think of the right words, but she can be present physically, she can comfort him that way. So she hugs him. It's an awkward angle, and there's a millisecond of tension in his body but then he relaxes into it. He feels even bigger than he looks, and it makes her question how much she really has to offer.
"Branch is with her now," he says over her shoulder.
It takes her a moment to process what he means. Branch and Cady were together. They might have even loved each other, but still. She pulls back from him, but she takes his hand again so he knows she's not going anywhere.
"We should go back," she says.
"They need time."
"She's your daughter, Walt."
A sad smile creeps into the corners of his mouth.
"She doesn't need me hovering right now."
"What?"
"I won't seem too accepting if I show up again an hour later."
"What?" she says again. The possibility that he might be having some sort of mental breakdown crosses her mind. "Don't worry about that. She forgives you, Walt."
"She told me that," he says.
She stares at him.
He's tired and traumatized. He could be confused, or in one of the less sane stages of grief. Or it could be her. Maybe she's the one cracking up.
He runs his thumb across her palm and leans his head back against the couch.
"Thanks, Vic," he says.
She extracts her hand carefully so as not to set off any alarms, and she sits up straight.
"So she's . . ."
"Not yet," he says. "In a couple of days."
"Going home," she says.
"To the cabin first." This time the smile is almost flirty. "Better wait and see what she and her boyfriend have planned."
"Shit," she says, and she buries her own head in her own hands. "Shit. Shit. Shit."
With gentle fingers under her chin, he lifts her head to look at him. The smile is gone.
"I thought . . .," she says.
"You thought what?"
She starts laughing.
"Thank God," she says.
He's confused.
"Thank fucking God." She looks up at the ceiling. "I didn't just say that." She raises her arms, in praise and apology, the way she might do if she were mocking faith, which she isn't. "Thank you, God. Seriously. Fuck."
The last thing she wants is for him to start apologizing, so she hugs him, tight, and she kisses his cheek and his forehead and his cheek again.
"You must be hungry," she says. She starts to stand, but he's taken hold of her wrist so she's stuck, sort of leaning over him. She can't stop smiling. "She's going home," she says.
Without warning or ceremony or permission, he pulls her closer, and he kisses her before letting go of her arm. His stubble is prickly and his lips are soft and he smells like aftershave and sweat and alcohol. There might have been a little tongue in there, too.
"Okay," she says, frazzled. She stands and takes a step back, beyond arm's reach. "Cheese and crackers."
She's certain she has no cheese and no crackers, but those are the words that come out. She starts smoothing down the front of her pajama pants for no practical reason, and she bites her bottom lip. Her mind is a swirling ball of light and fuzz.
Before she makes a complete fool of herself or has a seizure, she goes into the kitchen. There's leftover eggplant parmesan and three beers in the fridge and some almonds and a jar of salsa in the pantry, and Cheerios on the counter, but no milk. She warms up the eggplant and takes it out to him with a beer.
Determined not to abandon him despite his lapse in judgment, she sits on the coffee table, off to the side, close, but not too close.
"Vic," he says.
He's holding the plate in front of him as though he's considering handing it back.
"That shit's good," she says.
"Vic."
"Shouldn't you call Lizzie?" she says with not a shred of snark. "Let her know you're okay."
He stares at her.
She points to the plate. "It'll get cold."
He nods and he takes a bite. Apparently he realizes how hungry he is because from there he shovels the rest in and downs half the beer while she drinks hers, and watches him.
He puts the plate down next to her, and he says, "It didn't work out."
"In the past day and a half it didn't work out?"
"We're different people."
"We're all different people, Walt."
He shrugs.
"You can't make a decision like that during a time like this."
"I think I already did," he says.
"Well maybe you two need to talk."
He seems to be considering it. Then he takes another drink of his beer, and he says, "Justin?"
"What about him?"
"I was afraid he'd be here with you."
"And you came anyway?"
He starts picking at the label on the bottle.
"You were right to come," she says.
"Where else would I go?"
"To your girlfriend's house."
"What's the story with Justin?" he says. He won't be deterred.
"No story. He was my date for the shindig."
"Do you love him?"
She's becoming restless, feeling cornered. "Do I love him?"
"Yeah," he says.
"No. I don't love him. I barely know him."
"I don't want to be alone tonight," he says like it's a completely normal transition.
"You did not just say that."
"Why?" he says.
"Where do I start?"
She picks up his plate and takes it into the kitchen.
He follows, saying, "I didn't mean it that way."
While she rinses it and puts it in the dishwasher, he leans against the counter, watching.
After drying her hands and draping the towel neatly over the oven door handle and actively avoiding eye contact, she looks at him.
He nods his head towards the living room. "About that," he says.
"No," she says. "No. We've been here before. We're not having that conversation."
"I just thought—"
"Well, don't. Don't think. Don't talk."
He bows his head, an act of shame, though she doesn't believe that's what it is.
"Look, Walt. I'm thrilled that Cady's okay and that you're okay. But we're not talking about this again, and we're not doing that." She points to the living room as though there's even the slightest possibility he wouldn't know what she's talking about.
"I didn't mean it that way," he says again.
"I don't want to know how you meant it," she says. "However you meant it, I'm not fucking my boss, and I'm definitely not fucking another woman's man."
"There was no mention of fucking," he says, bitter emphasis on the last word.
"Where do you think that leads?"
Her face flushes. For some reason she has a flashback to Lizzie on the porch that morning, fresh from his bed.
She goes into the bedroom and comes out with two blankets and a pillow and drops them on the couch.
"Sleep there," she says. "The last thing you need is a DUI."
"I'm all right."
"Maybe."
He nods, shifts his weight.
"I'll make you coffee and breakfast," she says. "We'll go to the hospital first thing in the morning then I'll go into the station."
"All right," he says.
He starts unbuckling his belt, then he seems to reconsider, and he picks up one of the blankets instead.
She leaves him to it.