“We’re fine,” he says quickly. “We’re great, actually. I just came here to talk to you because, well . . . I realized we’ve never talked that much.”
Despite how surreal it is to see Seth Hasegawa Hale in my garage, I invite him upstairs, where I become intensely aware of the messes I haven’t cleaned up: plates in the sink, blanket spilling onto the living room floor, snack wrappers poking out between the couch cushions.
“I’ll just, uh, tidy this up a bit,” I say, rushing around and grabbing as much junk as I can. “Do you want something to drink, or eat, or . . . ?” I’m relieved when he says no. “Sorry. I eat all my meals on the couch, pretty much.” I slam the dishwasher shut, praying Seth doesn’t report back to Torrance that I have the eating habits of a twenty-year-old stoner.
“Patrick does, too. Dining tables aren’t really a thing for your generation, huh?”
“Guilty. What will millennials kill next?” It’s a cheap joke, but it gets me the pity laugh I was hoping for.
I motion toward the couch, and the two of us sit down.
“So . . .” he says, drumming his fingers on one of my pillows, the drawn-out syllable underscoring the fact that we have never had a solo conversation. Even when we were at that hockey game, which now feels like it happened years ago, we were buffered by Russell and Walt. Plus, there was very clearly something going on around us, and here there isn’t, unless you count the empty bag of chips I attempt to casually kick under the couch.
He closes his mouth, and for a moment, I think he might get up and leave. Forget what he came here to say because it’s just too awkward.
“I wanted to check on you,” he says finally. “How . . . are you doing?”
“Oh. I’m okay?” Despite telling my brother I didn’t want to talk about it, the question doesn’t feel nearly as panic-inducing, coming from Seth.
“I know you and Tor have become close, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you and Russell helped us like that.” He’s been staring at his shoes, sleek suede slip-ons, but now he turns his attention to me. “Perhaps it wasn’t the most professional thing to do for your bosses, but as you know, I’d never gotten over her. Maybe we’d have found our way back to each other on our own, but maybe not. I think we really needed this boost.”
“It wasn’t as noble a mission at the beginning as you’re making it out to be.” I feel compelled to remind him of this.
“However it happened,” he says, more confidence in his voice now, and maybe I see a glimmer of the man who used to want to be on camera, too, “I’m glad it did. And I wanted to thank you.”
“You’re doing well, then?” I ask.
When he grins, his whole face lights up. “We’re better than we’ve ever been,” he says, smoothing out some stray threads on my pillow. “We’ve even talked about going on vacation together this summer. And you and Russell . . . ?”
There’s something familiar in the way he says it. A feigned nonchalance I recognize all too well. After what happened in Torrance’s office, I know that Seth is a terrible, terrible actor.
That’s why he’s here. To help Russell and me.
“We’re . . . not together anymore,” I say. “It’s for the best. Really.”
“I don’t know about that.” Seth places the pillow behind his back, and I want to tell him there’s unfortunately no comfortable position on this couch. I’ve tried them all. “He’s been different at work. Still professional, of course, because that’s Russ, but there’s something off about him. A spark that’s missing.”
“I doubt it’s because of me.”
Seth just raises his eyebrows, like we both know that’s not true. “A wise person with questionable taste in snack foods once told me that if something’s right, if it’s meant to be, then it’s worth bending a little. I don’t know all the intricacies of your relationship, and I don’t want to overstep—”
“A first for any of us,” I put in, but he doesn’t laugh.
“For five years—longer, really, since we weren’t happy for a while before the divorce—I was too proud,” he continues. “Too stuck in my ways. If I’d realized that earlier, maybe we would have gotten back together sooner.”
“Or maybe you’d never have split up.”
He considers that for a moment. “Maybe we needed to,” he says, “to learn that it was possible to become whole again.” A pause. “Maybe none of this is relevant. Maybe what you two are dealing with is quite different. But in case any of it means something to you, I wanted to let you know.”
“Thank you. I—I appreciate that,” I say, wanting so badly to view this as the glimmer of hope Seth intended it to be.
“Well. That’s all I came here to say.” He gets to his feet, dusting off his pants. “Oh, and I think you have a Funyun in your hair.”
* * *
? ? ?
“IT’S LOOKING GREAT,” the doctor says, gesturing to my X-ray on her computer. “I can’t see any evidence of the fracture. I’d say you’re healed.”
“Completely?” I stretch out my left arm, flexing my fingers. “There’s still a little pain when I type for long periods of time, and I don’t have nearly as much strength as I do in my right arm.”
“That might be the case for a bit longer,” she says. “Let us know if it gets worse, but as far as we’re concerned, the fracture has healed nicely. You’re good as new.”
It’s strange, leaving the medical center without another appointment on the books. Even stranger: how badly I want to tell Russell. There’s too much I want to share with him, both large and insignificant—that Javier got his chef, that somehow my GOOD VIBES ONLY sweatpants have become my favorite article of clothing, that Seth was at my house and I lived to tell the tale.
But I don’t.
And after a while, even the dullest whisper of pain fades away, and then it’s just a memory.
32
FORECAST:
Thick layers of existential fog beginning to clear toward the end of the week
AVOIDING RUSSELL BECOMES a game, and if we were keeping score, I like to think I’d make it to the championships. Aside from our mostly opposite schedules, I’ve become stealthy, coming to the station with a full face of makeup so I don’t run into him in the dressing room, doing most of my work in the weather center, eating lunch at my desk or with Torrance.
Two weeks after the Winter Olympics, we collide in the kitchen. I’m washing out my mug and he’s come in for a coffee refill, his own mug dangling from the crook of his index finger. bring them back, the mug says, along with a logo for the Seattle Sonics. The mug is so Russell that it makes my heart ache.
“Oh—sorry.” He backs away from the coffee maker, which is a full five feet from the sink. “Did you want—”
“No, you go—” I say, both of us stumbling over the other’s words. Forcing myself to take a deep breath, I shut off the water and turn around, letting my damp hands flap awkwardly to my sides. “Hey.”