A noise makes me sit up straight, too fast, sending agony through my arm. I grab it to my chest, and call out, “Who’s there?”
“Me.” A woman comes out of the kitchen. She’s the woman from the café, the long-haired woman who was so kind, but I cannot figure out what she’s doing here. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
I peer at her, trying to fit the pieces together. “How . . . What . . . ?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, again, coming into the room. “I just have to pour this out all at once. I heard you crying and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Heard me?”
She holds up her hands. “Wait, let me just spill it all. It will be easier. Then you can call the cops or whatever.” She’s barefoot, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a braid, and she sinks down to the ottoman in front of me. Up close, I notice again that she’s remarkably beautiful, and oddly familiar. “My name is Norah Rivera. I was your dad’s girlfriend, living here with him when he died.”
I blink.
“Your mom kicked me out when you were getting out of rehab, and I didn’t have any money or anything because I’m a student and I came out here to write about Meadow, but then I got mixed up with your dad, and—” She breaks off. “Ugh. Anyway, I’m sorry, but I snuck back in and I’ve been living in the room off the garage.”
Her words have gone into my brain, but not one single bit of it makes sense. “I don’t get it,” I say.
“I know. Let me get you some more ice,” she says. “And ibuprofen?”
“No,” I say. “I can’t.”
“Sure? Is it the recovery thing? I’m pretty sure ibuprofen is okay.”
“It’s not recovery I’m worried about,” I say. I feel high even though I’ve had nothing. Is it serotonin or oxytocin or some other brain response to pain? Whatever, it’s strange and I can’t really think straight. “Turns out I’m pregnant.”
For a long moment, she stares at me. “Wow.” She plucks the Ziploc out of my hands and goes to the kitchen. The ice maker in the fridge grinds out its product and she brings it back to me, competently picking up my arm by the cast and placing it on the bag on the arm of the sofa. “Is that comfortable?”
“Yes.” I tug the comforter around me, and it unexpectedly releases a scent I can’t name but I know belongs to my dad. Tears sting my eyes again, and it’s ridiculous. I let my head fall back. “Thank you.”
“How about a cup of tea? Unless Meadow got rid of it, I kept a bunch of different ones.”
“I think they’re still there.” The ice starts to cool the cast, and thus my wrist, and the pain starts to subside. “I’d love something, anything, with lots of honey.”
She lifts a finger. “I know just the thing. And how about some music, something easy? It sometimes helps me stop thinking.”
The situation is completely weird, but at the moment, I don’t care. It’s like I rubbed a magic lamp and out came a beautiful jinn to take care of me. “Yes, please.”
She bustles around, turns on music with her phone, sets the kettle to boil. I can see her through the doorway, taking down a tray, teapot, cups. Napkins from the cupboard, a small plate with cookies she scavenges from somewhere. Like Meadow, like Christy, the woman Augustus left Meadow for, she’s tall. Long legged. She’s also one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in real life, and I honestly can’t blame my dad for falling for her.
“How old are you?”
Smoothing the hem of her summer-weight sweater down over her hips, she comes to the door. “Thirty-one. How old are you?”
“Thirty-seven,” I say with a short laugh.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it? I was embarrassed by how much older than me he was.”
I shrug with my left shoulder, careful not to jolt the other side. “He always liked women a lot younger than him.”
“I think it’s more that he liked young women of a certain age,” she says with a clarity that surprises me. “Meadow was only nineteen. Christy was twenty-five. At least I broke into the thirties.”
I raise my good hand, palm up. “Too soon.”
With a nod, she goes to the kitchen and returns with a tray of tea. “It’s a very light green tea, not much caffeine, lots of lemon and orange. I’m just not sure which herbs are healthy and which are not, so I thought it safer to stick with actual tea.”