Chapter Seventeen

Dr. Gelhorn recommended admitting my mother to the hospital. My mom put up a bit of a fight, but Dr. G, thank God, was too sensible for her nonsense. “This is the quickest way I can help you, Helen.”

I packed her bag and drove her to the hospital. Dr. G met us, and we got my silent mother settled in a room. She was cooperative, but she refused to make eye contact with me. At last, Dr. G put a hand on the small of my back and told me to go home.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” I was going to need to take a personal day. At a minimum, I’d consult with Dr. G, fill my mom’s prescriptions, and take the trash out of her apartment.

My mother didn’t say good-bye. She did, however, whisper: “Don’t tell Kat.”

My boots slapped hard against the hallway tile. “I never have.”

It was after ten when I got home. I placed an order for Chinese delivery before realizing I wasn’t hungry in the slightest. I dashed off an email to Paul about being out the following day. As an afterthought, I also asked him to replace me on the interview team for the senior programmer position. Max didn’t need my help to dazzle anyone, and if anyone ever found out that we’d slept together, I didn’t want there to be any conflict of interest when he ended up getting the job.

Finally, finally, I let myself fall apart a little. Lowering myself onto the sofa, I put my head in my hands. I’d handled it, right? I’d caught it before things got out of control. “It wasn’t so bad,” I whispered. Nothing like how it was when I was a teenager. Kat wasn’t a child anymore. No one could take her away from me. My mom had a doctor now. I wasn’t worried about money. It’s OK.

I needed to hear it aloud.

“It’s OK. Everything’s OK.” It would have been more comforting if my voice weren’t so strained and scratchy.

My phone rang. It was Max. This time, I let it go to voice mail. I was much too vulnerable and broken right now. I’d face him on Tuesday at work, once today was safely in the past and I had my armor back on.

Someone rang my intercom from the street. Right—the food. I buzzed the delivery up and dug some cash out of my purse. But when I swung open my apartment door, I came face-to-face with Max instead of the food delivery man. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought I’d talk to you through the intercom, but you just buzzed me up.”

“Oh.” Flustered, I patted my hands over my unkempt hair and makeup-free face. I didn’t want him to see me like this. Ever. And I couldn’t be the sassy, flirty, fun girl right now. I was somewhere between hysterical and comatose, and that was not a look I wanted him to witness. “How did you know where I lived?”

He gave a rueful grimace. “You have a large internet footprint.”

“Cyber-stalker,” I declared half-heartedly.

“I know. Sorry to be creepy. But you sounded so upset on the phone this afternoon, and I just wanted to see if you were OK,” he said.

He outstretched his arms as though coming in for a hug. I ducked and evaded, stepping back into my apartment. With one hundred percent certainty, I knew that if someone hugged me right now I’d dissolve into tears. Maybe I’d never stop.

Still walking backward, I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror. God, no wonder he was worried. My face was white, except for dark purple circles under my eyes. My hair was kinked and weird. I looked like a crazy Irish banshee. If I started wailing, the picture would be complete.

“Now is not a great time,” I said. “It’s been a bad day and I just got home—”

“Have you eaten?” he interrupted.

“I just ordered food!” I exclaimed, frustrated. “Look, I told you on Friday night. I can take care of myself.”

A frown line appeared on his forehead. “That doesn’t mean you always have to though.”

Yes, it did. It absolutely did. I’d purposefully chosen to live my life in a way where I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. In tough times, what worked for me was to be left alone to lick my wounds until I recovered enough to stand up again. This wasn’t ridiculous bravado or false confidence on my part; it was actual life experience.

The one other time I let someone take care of me had ended very badly.

“Where’s your bathroom?” he asked before I could make him leave. I pointed down the short hallway, and he disappeared into it and shut the door. I cringed, thinking of all the products that clogged the counter. I was fairly sure there was underwear and discarded pajama bottoms on the floor. Hair in the sink too.

My phone buzzed with a text from Kat. Sorry to bug you so late, but I can’t reach Mom. She’s not answering my calls or texts, so I’m worried. Thinking about driving out to Glenview.

Oh no. My mother would not be focused on her phone in the next few days as her body readjusted to her medication and she tried to pull herself out of the abyss. How could I keep Kat away? Oh, so sorry! I texted quickly. Mom and I spoke this afternoon. Wendy’s husband is in the hospital, so Mom went to Bloomington to help her out for a few days. Wendy was an old coworker Mom had been friendly with. Last year, she’d retired and moved a few hours south.

I held my breath and waited for Kat’s response. Well, that’s a relief. Weird she didn’t let me know though.

I resisted the urge to throw myself lengthwise on the couch and indulge in a kicking tantrum of frustration. I hated lying to her. And she was right. My mother would never leave town without telling Kat. I think Wendy was pretty upset, and she was in a big hurry.

Another pause and then, finally, a merciful response. Ah. Thanks. Good night!

Shaking my head, I tapped out a text to my mom. Kat thinks you’re with Wendy while her husband is in hospital. I threw my phone on the coffee table. She’d have to take the lie from there.

Five minutes later, the Chinese food arrived and Max was still in the bathroom. Maybe just the sight of me in dishabille had made him sick? Maybe he was in there gearing up the courage to say “Can we just be friends?” to a distraught woman?

I opened the bag and eyed the beef and broccoli with disinterest. Guess I had dinner for tomorrow night taken care of already. I was just about to shove it in the fridge when Max emerged. I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to drop the hammer.

“I drew you a bath,” he announced. “Where’s your liquor?”

Huh? But I gestured to a cabinet over the microwave. He strode over, opened it, and pulled out my bottle of Knob Creek. Without asking, he rifled through my cabinets until he found my glasses. Ice went into a tumbler, and he poured two fingers of bourbon over it. Then he picked it up and grabbed my hand. “Into the bath with your booze,” he ordered.

Wide-eyed, I let him lead me down the hall. It really was beyond time to put my foot down and order him out, but suddenly, nothing in the world sounded better than a hot bath and cold bourbon.

There were bubbles in the tub. It was so surprising that I smiled. “I didn’t even know I had bubble bath.”

“You didn’t.” Max winked at me. “I’m a magician.” Pointedly, he turned around. “I’m being a gentleman. Get in.”

Caught completely off guard, I did what he said. I pulled off my yoga pants and sweatshirt and dipped a toe in the tub. It was on the verge of being too hot, which is exactly how I liked it. I settled into the steamy water and frothy bubbles and fought back a groan as the muscles in my back wept for joy.

In exactly two minutes, my face would be bright red and shiny. “I’m about to become a steamed lobster,” I warned him.

He turned around and smiled when he saw me ensconced in bubbles. “Good. You need some color back in your cheeks.” He handed me the bourbon. “Instead of a rubber ducky,” he said.

“Thanks.” For a moment I wondered if he was going to perch on the toilet seat and talk to me. I would have let him, but what I really wanted to do was just close my eyes and sip my drink and think about nothing except how warm I was and how good it tasted.

As if he could read my mind, he left the bathroom, calling over his shoulder, “You, relax. I’m going to snoop around your apartment.”

“Enjoy the chaos,” I muttered. But I was smiling.

I stayed in the bath long enough to get super pruny. My limbs were limp, and my brain a little foggy from the bourbon on a completely empty stomach. Wrapping myself in a robe, I glanced into my living room. Max had made himself comfortable. He was lying on the sofa reading a Lee Child thriller I’d finished a few nights ago. “That was a good one,” I said, feeling awkward.

He closed it and sat up. “Got to love Reacher,” he agreed. “How do you feel?”

It was embarrassing to admit, but: “About a thousand times better than I did before you got here. Thank you.”

“I put your dinner in the fridge,” he said. “Want me to reheat it?”

I shook my head. “No.”

Max stood. “Then I’ll tuck you into bed and head home.”

My mouth fell open. No one had tucked me into bed in about two decades. His lips twitched as I stared at him. “Lead the way,” he said.

Shrugging, I shuffled down the hall into my messy bedroom and climbed under my comforter. Max followed and made such a big show of tucking it all around my body that I actually giggled.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and put a warm hand on my warmer cheek. “Sleep well.”

This was all just…too much. His face was so kind, so affectionate, so focused on me that it caused some sort of nuclear reaction in my chest and brain. All of a sudden, words were frothing out of my lips before I could stop them. “My mom. She suffers from clinical depression. Pretty severe. The kind where she can’t get out of bed. It was at its worst when I was in high school, but she had a relapse in the past few weeks.”

I could feel the tears building in my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed to force them back down. Ugh, this month was going to be the death of me.

Three disparate memories collided in my brain. Max, in Pop’s, saying “I like nice girls.” My mother, this afternoon, refusing to look at me in the hospital room. My mother, fourteen years ago, looking at me with hatred from her first hospital room.

Max’s hand was still on my cheek. I pushed it away and met his concerned gaze. “Don’t get involved with me, OK? I’m not a nice girl. I’m the kind of girl who has her own mother committed.”

Undeterred, he put his hand on my scalp and started to stroke my hair. I closed my eyes against his azure sympathy. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, “I don’t think you’ve been ‘a girl’ for a really long time.”

Gulp. No one had ever called me sweetheart before. I kept my eyes closed hard. “It’s not polite to comment on a lady’s age,” I deflected primly.

He chuckled. “You know very well that’s not what I meant, Boots.”

He kept stroking my hair, and it felt so good and I was so warm and I didn’t open my eyes because I was afraid to see what was in his and…I dozed.

When I woke a few hours later, Max was gone.