Being a therapist allowed Tallie to dig into the common sense so easily clouded by mental illness, depression, obsessiveness, anxiety. She encouraged clients struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder to take time-stamped photos of their turned-off ovens and locked doors so they could revisit them during the day. She suggested to one OCD client who worried about leaving her coffeemaker on every morning to unplug the coffee machine or whatever small appliance worried her and take it with her to work. That way she knew for certain it wasn’t left on at home, ripe for fire starting. So much of therapy was practicality and giving people a much-needed pass to relax when they needed to or be weird when they needed to. To free their minds from doing what they felt like they should be doing if it always went against what they wanted to do. To ask questions like why when the client had never considered it.
Tallie scanned her emails, relieved to find nothing urgent, and repromised herself she wouldn’t peek again until Monday morning. She logged in to her personal email account and flicked through a few newsletters before pulling up old emails from Joel. As annoying as he could be on social media, he’d always been short in his emails, even the sweet ones. He wasn’t much of a texter, either. And he was impossible on the phone. During their marriage, they’d always had their best and most important conversations over dinner or while cleaning up afterward. Or on walks, in the car, the bed. Over coffee.
She’d typed Joel into the search bar and clicked on a random message that popped up. It was from two years ago, when he’d gone to Chicago to visit his brother the same weekend Tallie and Aisha had gone on a girls’ trip to Asheville.
From: [email protected]
Subject: :（
Too late to call and my phone is out in the living room anyway, but I was thinking about you, your body, how good you smell. And I’m in this guest bedroom with this laptop all alone. :（ Next time come up here with me.
Your poor, lonely husband,
J
And another from not long after that. He’d forwarded her an article on art deco architecture with pics of the American Radiator Building.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Look
The building we saw from Bryant Park. Next time we go up there, we should do one of those art deco walking tours. Would be so easy to talk Lionel and Zora into going back up with us. Make a whole thing out of it? You’re so fucking fun to travel with.
They’d never gone back up to New York together. Maybe Joel was planning to go on an art deco walking tour with Odette in the future. Maybe she was so fucking fun to travel with, too. He could walk next to her while she pushed Pearl in an expensive stroller. Maybe he’d strap Pearl to a baby carrier on his chest while he and Odette looked up and pointed at skyscrapers stabbing the blue.
It was imagining Joel with Pearl strapped to his chest that really did it.
Tallie hummed something quick and low to herself to stop her thoughts. Emmett rolled over, opened his eyes, and looked at her. Sat up, rubbed his face.
“I never take naps. Not really a nap person,” he said, his deep voice still stretching and waking up.
“Today, you’re a nap person,” she said, thankful he’d distracted her. “Can I get you anything? Food? Water?”
Emmett smoothed his hair and looked around her living room before focusing on the doorway to the kitchen.
“Actually, I’d like to make you dinner. I’d like to go to the grocery store and come back here and cook for you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I have plenty of food. You don’t have to go out in this mess,” she said, motioning to the blurry, wet window. He leaned forward and opened his backpack, fiddled around in there, and held up money to show her. He handed her five twenties, explaining that it was for lunch and everything else earlier, putting the rest in his pocket.
“It’s the least I can do. If you’re okay with me borrowing your car? I’ll leave—” he trailed off, rooting around again in his bag. He pulled out a small box and opened it. Inside was a ring with a diamond chunk the size of a pencil eraser. “I’ll leave this ring here. So you know I’m not running off.”
“You don’t want me to come with you? I could drive if you insist on doing this,” she said. He slid the ring box across the table so it was closer to her.
“I’ll take care of it. Steak okay?” he asked, standing.
“Sure. Steak sounds great. Oh, and keys. My keys,” she said, remembering her purse on the kitchen counter. She got it, unclipped them, and let her fingertips graze his palm as she handed them over. His grab quieted the jingle.