“Unu.” Ella embraced him immediately. She looked directly at his face, her eyes full of worry. “I’m so glad to see you. So glad. You know, we don’t see enough of each other. Why is that? It’s been, what, a month? I should have called you. Hey, hey—”
Unu’s lips trembled. Even as a little girl, she’d had this goodness. As children, they’d play during family vacations and she’d fix him snacks or get him cold compresses if he got hurt. Despite their five-year difference, she had always seemed like the older one. He had never wanted to look bad before her, but Ella would accept you. She’d never cast you out.
Ella moved closer to him to rub his back. She smoothed his hair, permitting him to sit in his anguish privately but not be alone. David remained seated in the armchair, not knowing if he should stay or go. It would be wrong to rush out, to draw attention to himself right now. His fiancée was so lovely, caring for her cousin in this way. Her heart was so big. David couldn’t look away, to not observe this moment. Unu was sobbing violently, almost unable to breathe. His hands, however, had stopped their fidgeting. David leaned his body forward; he’d say nothing, wait for Ella to indicate what he should do.
“Honey, whatever it is, it will look different tomorrow. It’s always worse at night. You need to rest.” Ella knew this was true. The awful could be different the next day. A social worker at the hospital had told her after she had taken too many of the codeine pills that every day the pain would alter a little and somehow you’d manage just a bit better. “I promise, Unu. There isn’t anything you can’t face.”
“I was evicted today. I lost everything.”
Ella tried to contain her surprise. David nodded solemnly.
“Then you’ll stay here. You’ll tell me everything in the morning. I’ll go make your room right now.” She pulled away from him so she could see his face better. She kept her arm around his shoulders. He looked so exhausted. “Do you want to sleep?”
Unu shook his head no. He wouldn’t be able to sleep like this. Without having explained. So he told them about the gambling. He spoke rapidly, hardly slowing down to give sufficient details, as if he’d lose his nerve if he took too many breaths. In his telling, he could hear the pattern himself: The gambling had started in Korea after his wife left—the occasional game of blackjack at Walker Hill; then, when he returned to the States, he’d placed a few bets on NCAA games through his frat brother, and then he found himself driving to Foxwoods on the weekends to stifle the boredom of his job. Things had gotten better when he was with Casey but got worse after he was fired. When she left, it had gone to hell.
Ella’s mouth was slightly open. A long time ago, Casey had mentioned something about Unu going to Foxwoods now and then. She had never mentioned that it was a problem. But it wasn’t like Casey to criticize others. When people were wrong or unkind, Casey tended not to talk about it. In all the time Ella was married to Ted, Casey had not said anything bad about him, though Ted had often been awful to her. How had she lived with Unu’s gambling? Especially if Casey had always worried about money. This didn’t justify her sleeping with her former colleague, but Ella couldn’t think any more that her cousin had been entirely innocent. Their breakup must have been more complicated than that. Ella should have thought about that, too. Her own divorce was baffling at best. She barely understood what had happened to her and Ted even now. Where had she gone wrong? Where had he?
Unu stopped crying. His face was calm, his eyes drained of the terror that had been there when he had first walked into the house.
“Did Casey—” Ella stopped herself. All she knew about their breakup was that Casey had slept with Hugh Underhill. Unu had said he had ended it because of that. Naturally, Ella had thought that was right. And Casey had not called her after moving out, and Ella had spoken to her only once—about her mom—and that call had gone poorly. “I mean, how did she. . .”
Unu paused before speaking. What did Ella want to know?
“I threw her out because she fucked Hugh. Maybe she fucked him because she was angry at me. Maybe she fucked Hugh because she thought I was a bum. Maybe she fucked him because she felt like fucking him. Maybe she fucked him because I wouldn’t marry her. Who the fuck knows?” Unu laughed. Suddenly he felt ridiculous. All this time, he had done everything he could to stop thinking about her. She had cheated on him even though she had known what his ex-wife had already done. He’d thought it was love—what they had, or at least on his side, anyway. Could he have read her wrong? The market calls he’d made—buy the growth and hold on long—Unu had been a true believer, not some damn hedger. The Street seemed to function on the slash and burn—live for this crop cycle and forget next year. Then whatever, he’d thought, he’d gamble it all, because what was the point of accumulating everything anyway or building something up? But inside, he’d been fighting to cling to some old notions of love. He had loved her. He had wanted it to work out. All along, he’d hoped that she was a true believer, too. Had she loved Hugh Underhill? No, it couldn’t have been that, he told himself. But they had never spoken about what had happened. Not really. He had made her leave because it had hurt too much to see her.