Broken

Details registered. He had long hair, more than a bit unkempt. He wore a shapeless fatigue jacket and matching, slightly ragged pants. Oh, lord. He was probably part of some outpatient program at the V.A. Hospital.

“Well, I didn’t see a wedding ring…”

I looked automatically to my left hand, where I was, indeed, wearing my wedding ring. I was so stunned by this, the first outright proposition I’d had in as long as I could remember, that I couldn’t even speak. I could only stare.

He moved closer, looking hopeful. “So? Are you?”

“I’m…no, I’m not.”

The man took off running down the aisle. I looked after him, the absurdity of the situation giving the entire experience a surreal flavor. I paid for my purchases, fumbling with my change and laughing too hard at the cashier’s unfunny jokes.

I’d carried myself as a married woman for such a long time, I’d considered myself under the radar of outright flirtation. Either men didn’t notice me, or I didn’t notice them noticing. After the ineloquent come-on, though, I kept my eyes open a little wider. Was the man in the next car checking me out? Was the guy holding the elevator door for me doing it to be polite or was he giving me a once-over when I reached to push the button for my floor? Even if they weren’t, the possibility that they might be preparing to accost me with the offer of a night on the town kept me smiling.

Adam didn’t find it so amusing. “What did he say to you?”

I paused in showing off the new mug. “I told you. He asked me if I was available for dating.”

“He asked you on a date? In the middle of the store?”

“Well, to be honest, I think he was a little off, Adam.” I put the mug back in the bag.

Adam maneuvered his chair away from the computer desk so we were face-to-face. “What did you say?”

“I said I wasn’t.” Even now, the memory made me laugh. “And really, if you’d seen him—”

“What about him?”

I described the man, exaggerating a little to make the story better, but not too much. “I think he was probably on outpatient leave from a mental program. He had that look. Poor guy, his therapist probably told him to go out and take a chance, ask a woman out, and I shot him down. I probably set him back months in his progress.”

Adam didn’t laugh. “Right.”

“Adam,” I said with a sigh. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Some guy comes on to my wife and it’s not a big deal?” Agitated, he swung the chair around. It was big and heavy, and though he could operate it with agile grace, it still needed room to move. He nudged the edge of the desk and let out a curse when his papers fell down.

I bent to gather them up. A few lines of text caught my eye, phrasing from his lectures. I put them back in the folder.

“Honey, he wasn’t even cute!”

The look he gave me was long familiar, sardonic, verging on mean. “What does that mean? If he had been cute, you’d have taken him up on it?”

A snappish response teetered on my tongue but managed to cling to the inside of my mouth without spitting itself out. “Don’t be silly,” I said instead.

Adam grunted. His version of pacing was to rock the chair back and forth in small arcs. The room wasn’t big enough for him to move more than that, the chair too bulky to allow for the tight turns he’d need to crisscross the space.

“Adam, it was a funny story. I thought you’d like it. I’m sorry I told you.”

His eyes flashed. “What does that mean, Sadie? You won’t tell me about it again?”

“I’m sure it won’t happen again,” I replied with a sigh. “C’mon. It was just a fluke.”

He grunted again and stopped the pacing. “Were you wearing that outfit?”

I looked down at my clothes. “I was, yes.”

He’d always been a master of expression, with words or without. His snort made his feelings very clear. “Well, no wonder he hit on you.”

That made me laugh out loud. “Oh, really? Because this outfit is so sexy?”

My work clothes were the farthest thing from sexy I could ever imagine, most of the time. Then again, so was I. The Beatles might have written about Sexy Sadie, but that wasn’t me.

“I don’t like men hitting on you, that’s all.” Adam sounded less fierce, more what Mrs. Lapp called grexy.

I went to him and kissed his cheek. “You have nothing to worry about.”

He wasn’t so easily appeased. “Weren’t you wearing your wedding ring?”

That was it. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yes. I was! You act as if I was out trolling for business! Stop it!”

Maybe I shouldn’t have told him the story, which had been amusing and a bit of an ego boost to me. Adam was moody on the best of days. It wasn’t difficult to figure out why, but once he’d had a much better sense of humor. It was hard to remember he wasn’t the same man I’d seduced with a red ribbon stuck in a book of poetry.

He stopped talking. He went back to his computer and ignored me. I took my mug and left the room.

If he’d been cute, would I have taken him up on the offer? Gone out with a stranger I met while buying a mug? Maybe gone home with him, to his bed, or to a hotel room, to a car, to a back alley where he’d push me against a wall and merge his flesh with mine in anonymous passion?

According to Joe, things like that happened all the time, to him. But Joe never came on to me. I only listened to him talk about it, month after month, and wondered what it would be like to be asked and answer, “yes.”

Chapter 04

“Valentine’s Day is the pimple on the ass of the year.”

My patient’s blunt statement made me laugh. I know her well enough to understand she was using humor to cover up insecurity, but that didn’t matter. What she said was funny, anyway.

“Why do you say that, Elle?” I poured us both another cup of tea.

“It’s a martyr’s holiday.” She added sugar and cream to her cup.

Sometimes, patients are ashamed of me, or rather, their need to see me. Sometimes they embrace me so fully it compromises our working relationship. Elle, whom I found to be bright, funny and compassionate, had managed to strike the perfect medium. We were friendly but not quite friends—with friends the sharing of trouble goes both ways and with us it was necessarily one-sided. Still, our sessions had taken on the tone of two girlfriends chatting, rather than of a doctor counseling a patient. It showed me she was comfortable with me. It had taken her a long time.

I added lemon to my cup. “Ah, yes. Poor St. Valentine. But it’s not that anymore.”

She sipped and gave me a familiar raised eyebrow. “Sure it is. The search for the perfect gift? The despair if you don’t get just the right thing? The depression of not having someone to buy for, or having someone to buy for but not the person you want.”

“I’m sensing some anxiety over Valentine’s Day.” How easily I put on the doctor’s cap. Girlfriends or not, Elle was there to talk, and I to listen. She didn’t always take my advice but then, not all of it was good.

The way she tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair meant what I’d said was true, but I didn’t push. Some of my colleagues favor a more antagonistic approach, call my methods the “soft and fuzzy” school of psychology. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I can only do my best.

“I do love him.” She spoke low, but not hesitant. “It’s not that I don’t.”