Page 22 of Woman on the Verge

He laughs. “That was particularly good.”

“Right.”

She lies flat again.

“You okay?” he asks. She can hear the smile in his voice.

“Very much okay.”

He sits up, reaches for the comforter that they’ve kicked to the end of the bed, and pulls it up over their naked bodies. Then he turns on his side and wraps an arm around her middle.

“Would you be mad if I was a typical man and fell asleep?” he asks.

She sits up, his arm still on her middle.

“No, no. But I should go,” she says, lifting his arm.

His closed eyes blink open.

“What? Really?”

She didn’t anticipate that he’d want her to stay.

He kisses her thigh.

“Stay,” he says.

“I can’t.”

But technically, she can. Her husband is not expecting her home until tomorrow.

“Please?” he says.

“Wow, you’ve really perfected that puppy-dog thing.”

“Is it working?” he asks.

Her body wants to stay. That much is clear. Her mind doesn’t know what it wants. Her mind doesn’t knowhowto want, period. Her mind has operated in accordance withshoulds for years now.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll stay.”

He nuzzles into her neck, says, “That’s what I like to hear.”

Then he falls asleep with his head on her chest, his fingers interlocked with hers, and she worries he wants more from this than she can possibly give.

Chapter 5

Nicole

When I woke up at nine o’clock in the morning, later than I’d ever woken up since becoming a mother, I checked my phone, and there was a text from Kyle:

Glad you made it safe.

Whenever he puts periods on the ends of text messages, it feels like an assault. The text was timestamped at 5:18 a.m., which must have been when the girls woke him up. I felt a mixture of sympathy and delighted amusement about this.

He hadn’t texted to ask about my dad, which bothered me. I’d given him the general rundown of my dad’s symptoms and figured he’d be as invested in the medical mystery as I was. The girls must have had him distracted; he could not mentally multitask like I could.

I’m worried about my dad. Taking him to the ER today.