Page 47 of The Probability of Us

“We’re no—” The look she gives me stops the words in my throat, because I know they’re lies as much as she does. “I’ve always hoped we would too.”

“If there ever were two people meant to be,” she says, more serious than she’s ever been, “it’s you two. Take it from an old woman like me who’s seen a lot. What you two have is special.”

“You know, you’re not the first person to tell me that this week.” Does that make it true? “I’ll see you later, Lola. Thank you again.”

“Does he know?” she asks, hesitantly, when I’m almost out of the door. “Who you’re going to see and why? That you see her every year?” I shake my head, and she nods solemnly. “Good luck.”

I can see his brain working as I walk out with the bouquet of tulips, his face twisted in concentration. I take my time securing them into the backseat so they won’t get damaged on the drive. He doesn’t speak until I’m turning onto I-84 E.

“Muffins, tulips, and . . .” He looks around. “How long is the drive?”

“You’ll see,” I say, smiling. I think, in the back of his mind, he knows, but he doesn’t believe it’s actually what we’re doing.

I want to distract him from asking more questions, and I want to know more about what’s been going on in his life, so I ask the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you hear from your dad much?”

A smile stays on his face, despite the touchy subject, as he says, “No, not really. Mostly just around birthdays and holidays. He got remarried recently, and I think she’s been encouraging him to reach out more because he asked about coming to visit.”

He’s so calm, so much steadier in his emotions than I remember. I’m happy to see he’s not angry still, he always carried that with him even if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“What did you say to that?” I glance over quickly and catch him shrug.

“I think I’m going to take them up on it. It’s already progress that he offered to come to me instead of saying work was too busy and if I wanted to see him I’d have to go out to New York. I did that once and ended up exploring the city alone. If he’s wanting a better relationship, I’m open to it.”

“Wow,” I say before I can stop it from slipping out.

He laughs. “What?”

“That’s so different from how this conversation would’ve gone six years ago.”

I catch his smirk out of the corner of my eye as he says, “Please enlighten me on how it would’ve gone back then.”

“Well.” I laugh, nervously. “If your dad had reached out back then you probably would’ve masked your anger with some comment about how you survived without him so why would you need him now. You only ever told me the bare minimum about that whole situation, but I always knew there was more to it than you let on.”

“I told you more than just the bare minimum,” he says, but I hear the question in the words as he tries to remember how those conversations went.

“No.” I shake my head. “All you ever told me was that they got divorced. The first time you told me anything about why or how it affected you was yesterday, and even then, I don’t think you’ve told me everything about the situation.”

“Hm, I guess you’re rig—” He pauses. “Wait, but you weren’t surprised to hear the reason. You knew?”

I nod and try to fight my grin. “Someone told me about it a few years ago.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see.” My grin comes shining through and I laugh when he narrows his eyes at me.

“Fine,” he grumbles as he reaches over and laces our hands together on the center console. His voice is softer when he asks, “What aboutyourmom and dad? Will you tell me more about what happened?”

I take a deep breath. “It was a heart attack. There were no warning signs, no issues with her health, we were just a family at lunch, laughing one second and the next she’d fallen out of her chair and wasn’t responsive. By the time she got to the hospital, it was too late to do anything. She was being kept alive by machines and my dad had to make the decision to unplug her . . . or not.”

He squeezes my hand, and I shoot him a grateful smile. It’s been long enough that it’s easy to talk about this part, even though I still miss her. What’s hard to talk about is the ongoing pain, the ongoing impact of what it turned my dad into.

“I’ve always wondered if having to make that decision made it worse for my dad, if he felt partially responsible for being the one to decide to let her go.” As far as I’m aware he didn’t start drinking until after that. “It was the right decision. We had the funeral a few days later and I didn’t think much of it when I picked him up and he was drunk—he’d just lost his wife. But as the days kept passing, he kept drinking. He wasn’t eating much, wasn’t moving. He was like a zombie—there but not really alive. Then his personality started changing and no matter what I did, nothing helped. Nothing made him stop. I’ve never felt so useless in my life. I tried everything I could think of, but he only grew more aggressive. So I started going less and less. I really only see him once a year now when I show up on the anniversary of her passing to check on him. I keep hoping, one of these times, he’ll be back to normal, that he’ll realize the harm he’s done and apologize. But it hasn’t happened yet.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and I think I catch the glimmer of a tear dropping down his cheek. “I know how much you looked up to both your parents, and to lose them both in such a short time . . . I can’t even imagine how hard that was. I wish I had been there for you.”

I wished that for a long time too. He was who I wanted to talk to for so long, but he wasn’t there, and I still survived. I still made it through. “As much as I hated it, I think I needed to go through it alone. You were always the one telling me how strong I was, and I believed it because it wasyousaying it. I had to prove to myself that I was that strong. I needed to believe it for myself.”

“Youareso strong, Analise.” His voice is firm but warm, and his thumb brushes across the back of my hand sending flutters through my stomach. “You always have been.”

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