The Venus Fix

Sixty-Five

I left Nina’s late that afternoon and took a cab home. Everything was slightly difficult to manage. And everything exhausted me. I dropped my bag on the floor and my coat on the back of a chair, then sat down on the couch.

The room was still and quiet and smelled slightly of the heated air coming up through the pipes. I went to light one of the many scented candles that I keep handy-not as an affectation or an aid to romance, but because they were necessary to get rid of the odor-but couldn’t manage the matches with only one hand.

When Mitch rang the doorbell forty minutes later, I was still sitting in the den, trying to ignore the throbbing in my wrist. It was strange to open the door with my left hand.

He kissed me, gently and softly, on the lips. I smelled the cold that he brought with him and shivered a little, surprised that the freezing temperatures would follow him upstairs and linger so long.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, looking at the cast in the sling.

“Yeah, but I’m okay.”

“I bet you’re being stoic beyond logic and not taking anything stronger than aspirin.”

Instead of the comment sounding endearing, it was as if he’d flung an insult at me.

“I’m okay.”

He shrugged as if he’d heard this before. And he had. I took a big breath. Of course it would be like this at first. We had to work back into knowing each other. We had to find a new way to be together.

“Do you want a drink?” I asked.

“I’ll get it. You sit.”

I let Mitch make us both drinks-Scotch neat for him, a club soda for me. I was concerned about mixing alcohol with the residue of painkillers in my system. He brought them over to the couch, handed me mine and took a swallow of his.

“How is Dulcie?” I asked.

“Resolute.”

“So am I.”

“I know.” He smiled ruefully.

“You won’t try to get in the middle and convince me to give in, right? I won’t.”

Mitch was handsome in a way that should have been more attractive to me. But sitting in the den that used to be our den, watching him, it wasn’t. When he’d kissed me, I hadn’t felt anything. Of course not; I was in pain. I’d broken my wrist twenty-four hours earlier. What was I supposed to feel? But there had been no startled acceleration of my blood, no heat in my cheeks. I’d smelled his cologne and had stepped back, finding it slightly unpleasant, the way a memory can be.

“No, I won’t.”

“Mitch, she doesn’t have the tools yet to deflect the dangers out there.”

“You’re lecturing me, Morgan. I already told you I wasn’t going to try to change your mind.”

“Right. Sorry. I really am sorry. I just hate not having her here. I hate being the one to say no, being the bad guy again.”

“It’s going to be fine.” He smiled. “Do you want to go out and get something to eat?”

I didn’t. I wanted to see Noah. I wanted to talk to him and tell him how I was feeling and sit in the kitchen with him and have him make us something to eat. Damn. I needed to stop thinking about Noah. I had told Nina I could do this and that I needed to do this and it was what I wanted.

“Sure, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter, wherever you want.”

“Morgan, just pick someplace.” He sounded irritated. This was all too familiar. A pressure was holding me down, a tightness wound around my chest. I recognized the signs. I’d forgotten how we had been together.

My marriage to Mitch hadn’t ended because he wanted it to. I hadn’t been happy, either, even if I chose not to think about it, even if I chose to hide behind my daughter and my work.

“Mitch,” I said, “my hand hurts and I’m tired from all the painkillers. I think I need to stay here. I need to go to sleep.”

I got up and walked him to the front door, where he leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Call me tomorrow. And please, Morgan, stop being so stubborn. Take something to help with the pain.”

But once he had left, once the door had shut behind him and I was alone again in my home, my wrist wasn’t that bad and I wasn’t so tired anymore.