Totally and Completely Fine(52)

He sounded so indignant that I gave him a pat on the arm.

“Thank you for that,” I said.

“Is Teddy up there?” Gabe asked, looking up toward the second floor where Lena’s door was shut.

“Want me to go get her?” I asked, knowing the two of them were probably sprawled out on her bed, Lena scratching Teddy’s stomach.

Gabe shook his head. “Naw, it’s okay if she spends the night here.”

“She does like that,” I said.

“She’s barely talking to me.”

“She’s a dog, Gabe. If she talked at all, I’d be concerned.”

“Ha,” he said. “You know what I mean.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, and it made him look so tired. He had a bit of gray in his beard. We were both older than Dad had been when he died.

“The whole Chani thing caught her off guard,” I said. “She’ll get over it.”

“Will she?”

“I hope so,” I said. “But maybe think twice before you two start making out in my store.”

“Yeah,” Gabe said, rubbing the back of his neck, looking only a little embarrassed. “Whoops.”

We hadn’t really talked about Chani. About everything that was happening.

“How are you doing with all”—I gestured, hoping to illustrate what I was trying to say—“this?”

“Good,” he said. “I’m…happy?”

“Is that a question?”

“I love her,” he said.

I was a little taken aback by the straightforward honesty of that statement. How Gabe could just say it.

I thought about the way I’d felt about Spencer those first few years of marriage. How it didn’t even compare to how I felt the longer we were together. After we had Lena. It was like I hadn’t even known what love really was.

How could Gabe know?

Then again, he and Spencer had always held their hearts out first.

“She seems nice,” I said.

I hadn’t gotten much one-on-one time with her.

“She is,” he said. “And really smart. Like, way smarter than me.”

I hit him on the arm.

“Come on,” I said. “You’re smart.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Smart enough to know that I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“You won’t,” I said.

I tapped my fingernails on the banister. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d spoken this way to each other. Honestly. Openly. It was nice. Strange, but nice.

“It’s hard,” Gabe said.

“What is? Love?”

“Yeah.”

“Duh,” I said.

We both laughed.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

“I’ve got Lena. I’ve got Mom. I’ve got you.”

This was my life. And right now, it was good enough.

I was happy enough.

“I was thinking,” Gabe said, attention focused on his hands, “that I should take Lena on a trip. It might be a nice way for Lena and Chani to get to know each other.”

“It might not be a very fun trip,” I said.

I felt like a terrible mother saying that.

“Did you have a bad time when you came to Philadelphia?” Gabe asked.

“Uh. No?”

I was not going to think about Ben.

I was not going to think about Ben more.

“I’m going to New York,” Gabe said. “And I remember her having fun when we went last time.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “She got to sit front row at The Lion King, eat street nuts until she puked, and ride around in carriages through Central Park.”

“We could do all those things again.”

“She was eight,” I reminded him.

“Okay, we can do other things,” he said. “A friend of mine is directing his first Broadway show. I could take her to see that.”

“That’s very generous,” I said, still feeling hesitant.

“She could bring her friend,” Gabe said. “Eve, right?”

“That’s too generous,” I said, but he shook his head.

“I want to spend time with her.” He looked down at the floor. “Things have been…tense between us. For a long time now, even before Chani. I just feel like I need to do something about it.”

He was trying, and I loved him for it. And he asked me for so little.

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, giving me a smile.

“We should have taken bets,” I said, wanting to lighten the mood a little.

“About?”

“You and Chani,” I said.

Spencer probably would have won. He’d been Team Chani from day one.

“Shut up,” Gabe said, but he was laughing.

Chapter 30

Then

It seemed for a while that Gabe was going to be stuck in the literal trenches for his entire career. That his résumé would read Dead Soldier 3, Wounded Soldier 4, Dying Soldier 2, Ghost of Soldier, and so on and so forth until he got too old and then he’d be Dead General 3, Dying Veteran 4, etc.

He told us that he was thinking about quitting.