Page 97 of If This is Love

“Look here, sugar.”

I blinked again, and then I was staring at Missy’s kind hazel eyes.

She patted my cheeks again. “Can you hear me, Gabe?”

I blinked again, squeezing my eyes shut tight for a second this time. “Yeah, sorry about that, Ms. Missy.”

“It’s all okay,cher.” She gave the scruff on my cheek a quick rub before removing her hands and sliding a water glass toward me, then stepped away. “I’m going to bring you a snack. I think your blood sugar might be low. I think low blood sugar exacerbates all that mess.”

I blinked a few more times, recalling that Emma was still right here, and I’d been talking to her just a second ago about something. I swallowed a gulp of the water and then cleared my throat as I half-turned to her. “Sorry, I think I blinked out.”

Emma nodded patiently. “I could tell. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, and so, when that happens,” I went on awkwardly, “I basically lose whatever train of thought I had because it gives me a touch of amnesia.”

She cocked one eyebrow. “Atouchofamnesia. As in, your brain just blocks it out because it’s so awful.”

I shrugged. “Basically. I mean, not sitting here talking to you, but because I was talking about that stuff, my brain basically decided that everything we talked about after I apologized just didn’t happen. ‘Cuz I don’t remember any of it.”

She studied my face. “That sounds like disassociation.”

“Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of disassociating going on in my life.”

“Yeah,” she echoed, still studying me. “We don’t need to revisit it.But…” She tapped her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. “I was wondering how comfortable you’d feel if we were to do a video conference with a couple of the women who will be attending the program at Destination Destiny. They could tell you about the temple, and maybe that way you could just get their description of it rather than having to dig through your own shit.”

“Uh…” The temple was going to have to be built one way or another, and all I had to do was draw up the blueprints and pass those along to the foreman. It was thebare minimum. Surely, I could handle a video call with a couple of these ladies. At least, I hoped I could. “Yeah, that might be a good way to just get the info for the design.”

“Would you be free to do that maybe tomorrow?”

I nodded slowly, shifting my eyes, not having a good feeling about this and not knowing why. “Yeah, tomorrow around this time works just fine.”

25

GABE

ALGIERS POINT, NEW ORLEANS

There weren’t a lot of things that I appreciated more than video conferences even though I hated them. Yes, it was still having to show my face on video, but if the alternative was having to leave my house to go to an in-person meeting, give me the video all damn day. It was much easier to mask my agitation during a video call. I just held my hands below the table and gripped them together as hard as I could. Maybe bounce my leg a little, too, just because video conferences really did suck.

“Okay, can y’all hear me?” Emma said from her little square in the bottom left corner of my screen. My little square was right next to hers, and I stared straight into the camera to avoid seeing myself. “Just give me a little thumbs up if you can.”

I obediently lifted my thumb, as did one of the two other women in little squares on my screen. The younger of them looked about my age, mid-thirties or so, and she wore a bright purple covering over her hair and around her neck, offering a friendly smile while she held up her thumb. Her name, Bahar, hovered in the top left corner of her square. The other woman was much older and wore a black covering while she squinted with disdain and skepticism at the camera. Her name was Arwa, and she looked like she’d fit in just fine with all the little spitfire old ladies in my neighborhood.

“Arwa,ayumkinuk samaeiun?” Emma prompted.

Arwa silently but emphatically bobbed her head up and down and then scrunched up her hook nose, a patronizing, closed-lip smile stretching across her face as she lifted her weathered thumb.

Bahar laughed lightly. “She does not like video calls.”

Emma matched her laugh. “'Afhama.Mukalamat alfidyu fazieatu.”

The women laughed politely for another beat while I wracked my brain for the bits and pieces of Arabic that I picked up throughout my deployments. I could only figure out the first part, which was basically,I understand, so I guessed the second part was probably something about how it was universally agreed upon that video conferences suck.

“Okay, so, Gabe,” Emma went on, “This is Bahar, and this is her grandmother, Arwa.”

I nodded. “Ladies.”

Bahar waved while Arwa just stared at the camera with her salty, stalwart gaze.

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