That night, Emily got home from work and set out all the ingredients for fresh pesto: basil, pine nuts, olive oil, pecorino, garlic, salt, pepper. Even though she still felt raw and wounded, she wanted to make an effort. She looked at the pasta maker, wondering if she had time to hand-make pasta.
It was already six, so she decided to go with boxed fusilli, and put water on the stove to boil. She texted Ezra: Hope your day went well. What time will you be home?
She picked the smallest leaves off the basil so the pesto wouldn’t taste too minty and put them in the mortar and pestle they’d gotten for their wedding.
So sorry, Em. Hala just asked if I could take her call tonight—her brother flew in to surprise her for her birthday. So I said yes. Her night call goes straight into my call tomorrow, so it looks like I’ll be sleeping here tonight. Really sorry. See you tomorrow.
Emily let out a breath, as if she’d actually been punched in the gut. She wanted to talk to him. If he didn’t come home, they couldn’t work through things, get their relationship back on track, back to normal. If he didn’t come home, that gnawing feeling inside her wouldn’t go away, the one that made her feel off kilter, like her life was sliding sideways. Then another text came through: I’m still trying to wrap my mind around everything, still thinking about us. This wasn’t just about him doing a favor for Hala.
Emily stared at the texts. She’d really hurt Ezra—perhaps more than she’d realized. More than he’d hurt her, it seemed. She put the phone’s cursor in the response box. She didn’t particularly want to apologize—and honestly, she wanted him to apologize for not being there for her, for not telling her about Malcolm’s death—but she would if it helped get him home, if it made him process all of this more quickly.
I’m so sorry I hurt you, she wrote. I just never thought those stories about my past would matter. What matters is now, what we have together. The past is the past. I was a different person then.
It felt like that. Like there was one Emily in college, and another one now. There were attributes they shared, but they were two different people. They made different choices, had different passions.
Emily typed again. I love you.
Then she stared at her phone, waiting for those three dots.
He didn’t respond.
Which usually meant that some code had gone off in the hospital and he was rushing to a patient’s bedside. But she wondered now if that was actually the truth.