Page 45 of Woman on the Verge

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll leave the sitter’s number,” I said. “Just in case.”

He put an arm around my shoulders, pulled me into his side. It felt stiff and awkward. We just aren’t that type of couple, which begs the question of what type of couple we are. Our relationship was founded on physical attraction, buoyed by the hormones of youth, as most college relationships are. We became more attached as we went through all the steps of young adulthood together, side by side. Marriage was one of those steps. There was no reasonnotto get married, as far as we knew. I can’t even say that getting married was a mistake. We have made a good life for ourselves, for our family. We do not share tender embraces and offer each other shoulders to cry on, but we have a nice house and two beautiful kids and a loose plan for retirement. The fact that Kyle has the emotional depth of a rain puddle didn’t bother me until after I had kids, when I needed tender embraces and a shoulder to cry on more than ever before.

“I’ve gotta get back to work, but we can talk more later,” he said.

He gave my shoulder a squeeze, another unusual gesture for us, then took his sandwich to his office and shut the door.

Once he was gone, I started crying right there in the kitchen, while the girls continued their miracle of playing quietly. Had I ever cried in their presence? These tears did not care who was there, who neededme. These tears were resolute. I wasn’t sure if they were about my dad or my marriage or both. Perhaps they were about everything I should have cried about for years, but didn’t. Whatever the case, the dam had broken. I was grieving and it was awful, and it would probably be that way for a long time to come.

Chapter 8

Katrina

Katrina drives away from Elijah feeling immediate pangs of regret and longing. At the end of the street, she looks in her rearview mirror, and he is still standing there, at the place they said their goodbyes, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. She holds a breath in her chest. It occupies every nook and cranny of her lungs. When she releases it, she doesn’t feel relief or peace; she feels empty, deflated. She is not only driving back to her regular life today; she is leaving behind the possibility of a better one.

It’s after midnight when she finally gets home. The house is quiet. Everyone is in bed. She makes herself a cup of chamomile, hoping it will relax her enough that she can sleep. She is simultaneously exhausted and wired. She goes to the living room, sits on the couch. It’s nice—sitting alone, in the quiet. She can’t remember the last time she’s done this. When would she have time to justsit?

She finds his number in her phone, under E. She smiles like a giddy schoolgirl just looking at it. She shakes her head in disbelief at herself.

When she was at his apartment, she saw mail on his kitchen counter, made a note of his last name: Baker. It would be prudent to know his last name in case he did show serial killer tendencies, after all. And as importantly, she foresaw her desire to google him, to comfort herself with whatever images of him were on the internet for all the world to see.

Google reveals more Elijah Bakers than she expected, the most prominent being an English actor. When she scrolls through images, she sees several photos of the actor, along with an older musician and a Baptist preacher. A few clicks in, she finds him, a headshot on LinkedIn. His profile is sparse and doesn’t offer any information she doesn’t already know, but she appreciates the photo, saves it to her phone.

She opens the Instagram app, hoping for more. Elijah doesn’t seem like the type to have much of a social media presence, but he is a millennial, and she assumes an Instagram profile, at the very least, is required of millennials. When she types in his name, she is confronted with a plethora of Elijah Bakers. Most are easy to dismiss just based on the little circular image alone—he’s not a white guy, he’s not a super-dark-skinned Black guy, he’s not a twelve-year-old, he’s not a bikini-clad woman (this one makes no sense). There is one profile picture that is a lighthouse, and she wonders if that’s him. When she taps it, the profile is private, though. All she can see is that the account has only three posts, sixteen followers, and twenty-seven followees.

She takes the last sip of her tea, sets the mug on the coffee table, briefly wonders why it’s called a coffee table and not a tea table. She’s slightly delirious. It’s nearly one o’clock at this point, and she should go to bed.

She wants to text him. She could ask him for a photo, a keepsake of sorts. She wishes she’d given him her number so he could be the one responsible for reaching out. As it is, it’s up to her, and she’s told herself explicitly that she won’t. What would be the point? It would only prolong that overwhelming melancholy she felt while driving away from him, wouldn’t it?

She closes her eyes, strokes her soft belly, pretending her hand is his. She remembers doing this as a teenager, kissing the back of her own hand, imagining her skin to be the lips of her crush. Her hand slides beneath the waistband of her pants. She has to keep her eyes closed because if she sees herself doing this, she will feel too foolish to continue. And she wants to continue.

That word blares in her mind, like a neon sign—masturbate. Such an ugly, blunt word for such a delicate thing. It sounds more like a word for beating something into submission—eggs, dough. What she is doing is not that. What she is doing is sweet and sensual, a little desperate maybe. Her fingers are nothing like Elijah’s long, thin fingers, but the imagination is a powerful thing.

Within minutes, she makes herself orgasm, something she hasn’t done since she was a teenager alone in her twin-size bed, hormones instructing her to do things that her brain didn’t understand. She opens her eyes, satisfied, pleasantly surprised.Well, look at you,she thinks to herself with more than a little bit of pride. She didn’t know she could still do that, hasn’t felt compelled to even try in years.

Then, with that surge of empowerment to blame, she picks up her phone and just does it:

Hi. It’s me. Katrina.

She doesn’t expect a response because it’s one in the morning. But just as she stands to take her mug to the kitchen, she sees three dots on the screen. She stops, heart hammering away in her chest.

Him: You have no idea how happy I am right now

She sits exactly where she is, right there on the wood floor, because her head is light and fizzy and she might faint. She doesn’t know what to say and is thankful when he writes more:

I was hoping you’d text. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I was staying up to see if you would

She sets her mug on the floor next to her, holds the phone in both hands, staring at it as if it is the Hope Diamond.

Oh god, I’m sorry to keep you up so late

Him: Do not apologize. Please. How was the drive?

Uneventful. Home safe and sound. Kind of wish I was still there

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