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Then I’m quiet, loud ringing in my ears, and she scowls—annoyed with my response—before standing up.

“What are you doing now?” I ask, not moving from my spot on the plastic couch.

“Birdie, you’ve got a long way to go as a main character. I’m having a gin and tonic.”

If I wasn’t half dead, I would have told her it was only nine in the morning.

When she’s back with a drink in hand, lipstick already on the rim, she sits next to me on the couch.

“What did you do after you left the convent?” I ask her, in an attempt to change the subject. “And I’m not talking about the men, I mean professionally. You must have worked.”

A smile splits her face, revealing a faint yet familiar smudge of red on her front tooth. “I thought you’d never ask, Birdie dear,” she says with a theatrical pause, taking a sip of her breakfast cocktail before adding, “I was a writer, of course.”

My chin pulls back, eyes wide. “A writer?!” I look around her living room, bookshelves lining two walls. “What did you write?”

She’s quiet, but not hesitating. From the knowing look on her face, Mabel is building the drama.

“Romance, of course.” Another smile, another sip.

“Romance,” I whisper, a missing piece of a puzzle slipping into place as I look around at the shelves again. It’s as if I’m seeing her,and her home, for the first time. The constant questions, writing in her notebook, analysis of everything around her…Mabel is a writer.

My head snaps back toward her. “Have we read anything you’ve written?”

Another smile, another sip, then an easy nod. “Every single one, dollface.”

I let this sink in. Mabel had Paul for however brief a time then spent her life writing love stories. Maybe eventheirlove story. “So what happens now? After theshitstorm, I mean. How would you write this?”

“Ah!” she says, setting her drink down. “Well, let’s see now. We, the readers, know that you think you’ve learnedalesson—not that we agree with you of course.” She pauses, raising her eyebrows before continuing. “But we don’t know about Bo. This is a single point of view story. So, unfortunately, we wait. We have to see—will you both be able to learn your own lessons from this heaping pile of hot garbage and want to work it out, or are you destined to live separate lives, only knowing each other in this tiny blip of time?”

I groan. She laughs.

“Then what happens?” I ask.

“Then there’s a big gesture, letting you know that the lessons have been learned.”

“And if we don’t?”

Shetsksme, scrunching her nose in disgust as she lifts her glass. “Then it’s not a romance story, it’s women’s fiction, and nobody wants to read that horseshit.”

I laugh. I have no idea what women’s fiction is, but based on her definition, I don’t want that. But also…

“Maybe I’m not destined for a romance story, Mabel. Are there stories with happy endings without love?” I ask.

She balks. “For God’s sake, Birdie! I hope you never write a book with that kind of nonsense floating around your brain.”

When she shakes her head in disgust, I chuckle.

By the end of the day, even though nothing has changed and I’m still in a million pieces, somehow, I leave the slightest bit better.

Forty-six

“No Bo tonight, Birdie?”Monica asks as I set my groceries on the conveyor belt of her register Friday night.

I keep my eyes down. “Not tonight.”

When the belt stops, I don’t look away from my cart. Part of me doesn’t even care if I buy the food anyway.

Without warning, two arms wrap around me and squeeze me in a hug, making me grunt. Monica, with her dreadlocks, neon hair band, and Good Grocers name tag, pulls me into her so tightly I wonder if I’ll ever be able to breathe again.