JENNIE

"Oh! My! God! Good grief. Mary knows? And you and Kai are on a break?" Sana waves her hands about as though she has no clue what to do with them. "I go out of town for a weekend and all of this happens?" She clicks her tongue. "And worst of all, you slept with Lisa again? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that… I just really wanted to see Lisa." I can tell myself I didn't drive to Topanga to sleep with Lisa again, but I will always know it's not true. "Then I saw her and I felt… something. I felt good. For once in this wretched time in my life, I felt good. I felt seen and wanted. I felt cared for. I felt fucking loved for once."

"Oh, no, Jennie. No way. You're not bringing the L word into this. Lust, sure. Confusion, yeah. And of course you wanted to feel good for a few minutes, but what you feel for Lisa is not love."

"How would you know what I feel?"

"I don't, yet I still know it's not love, and you want to know how I know that?" She puts her hands on her hips. "Because it's not possible. She's family. You don't fall in love with your family, Jennie. You just don't. That's the end of it."

"And what if I am? What if I am in love with Lisa?"

Sana rolls her eyes at me. "Then fall out of love with her, for crying out loud."

"How?"

"By not sleeping with her again, for starters. By taking your husband back and no longer being on a break."

"It's not that easy."

"No, I imagine it's not, but you can do a hard thing. We all do hard things all the time."

"I've done my fair share of the hard stuff. I want something easy for once."

"And you think falling in love with your sister-in-law is going to be easier than denying your feelings for her? Are you willing to ruin that family? To do that to Kai? And what about Lisa? She still lives with her mother. You think she's the kind of girl who's going to give up her family for you?"

"No, of course not."

"I know I'm being harsh, but someone needs to snap you out of this. I figured Mary would have set you straight, but the poor woman was probably too much in shock."

"I'm not sure I can ever face her again. For her to see me like that…"

"Exactly," Sana says. "It's mortifying and it should be more than plenty to snap you out of this." She exhales slowly and comes to sit next to me. "We all know what it's like to have butterflies in our stomachs. To sleep with someone new and have them rock our world. I understand the allure of that, the delightful distraction it offers from real life, but that's just the point. It's not real life. You and Lisa can never be a thing in real life, not without some big ass consequences."

"Yeah." I know she's right. Of course I do. "But just so you know, Kai and I aren't just on a break because of Lisa. I'm not even sure what we're doing anymore."

"You both just need time, although not too much. Eventually, sooner rather than later, you're going to need a plan to find your way back to each other."

I try to shake off some of my most acute emotions. We have work to do. Our clients will be here soon to approve the final plans we drew up. The buzzer rings, startling us both. They're early.

"Let's do this." Sana shoots up. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," I say as Sana walks to the intercom to buzz them in. She does a double take when she looks at the video feed. "Either the Saldanas have morphed into an elegant middle-aged woman or that's Mary Manoban at the door."

"What?" My heart's ready to explode out of my chest.

"Should I let her in?"

"I'll go out. Talk to her there. Are you good for when the Saldanas arrive?"

"Don't worry. I'll deal with them."

"I owe you one."

Sana waves me off. Heart thudding furiously, I head out of the building to face Kai and Lisa's mother.

"Is there someplace we can talk in private?" she asks, not bothering with courtesies.

"Is Kai all right?" My heart might suddenly stop now.

"Just hungover, I imagine." Mary looks as though she hasn't had a proper night's sleep in a while. "I'd just like to have a word with you. I need to say a few things. It will only take a couple of minutes."

I walk her to the back of the building, where Sana and I drink coffee on our breaks. We sit down on the bench.

"I'm not sure I can trust Lisa when it comes to this," Mary launches into her speech without preamble. "So I'm asking you, Jennie. Don't do this. Don't leave Kai for Lisa. It will destroy him and our family."

"I'm not leaving Kai for Lisa." What does she mean when she says she can't trust Lisa? "That's just… unimaginable."

"Okay. Good. It was, um, horrific to have Kai come home like that last night. He was devastated, Jennie. He knows he's not innocent in this. No one is. He blames himself, really. If things don't work out between the two of you it would be awful, of course. That's an outcome no one wants, but these things happen. Couples grow apart because they can't get past certain events. But, for the love of god, don't let the reason for your break be Lisa. That's unacceptable. As their mother, who loves them both to death, I'm begging you, don't do that. Don't drive that kind of wedge into my family."

"No, Mary. Of course not." Good thing she wasn't a fly on the wall for the conversation Sana and I were just having.

"I worry that Lisa may have some untoward feelings for you and maybe it's too big of an ask after all you've been through, but you're going to have to be the strong one here, Jennie. You're going to have to dissuade her of any misguided notions she might have about this."

Lisa has feelings for me? My mind can only focus on that. I nod anyway.

"Can you give me your word?"

My word? My word is worth nothing. "Look, Mary, Lisa and I are both adults. We both know… what it is we need to know. We both love Kai, so. We will do what's right."

"Good." Mary shakes her head. "I so hope she gets that part so she can have something else to focus on, something tangible."

A pang of something—Pain? Guilt? Jealousy?—runs through me at the prospect of Lisa moving on, effortlessly replacing thoughts of me with thoughts of her possible new job.

"I hope so too."

"Okay. I'll let you get back to work." She rises. "Take care, Jennie," she says, as though we'll never see each other again.

I let my head fall against the brick wall behind me. Both Sana and Mary couldn't be more right. But Lisa has feelings for me, and I might as well admit to myself, really let myself feel it, that I have feelings for her too. But there's no room for elation at this discovery of reciprocity. We can never be together. I know what to do. My first task on a long list of many is to have another chat with Sana.