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The phone rang just as Lila finished her third glass of wine. She checked the caller ID and groaned.
“Couldn’t give me another week, could you?” she asked aloud. “Bastard.”
Carrying the phone and her bowl of microwave popcorn to the couch, Lila put Félix on speaker.
“What?”
Her very recent ex-husband’s voice flowed over her, warm, friendly, and soothing. Félix wanted something. That was good; it would make it easier for her to be cruel. “Good morning! How’s my favorite artist?”
Lila snorted. “How do you think I am?” She stuffed a handful of popcorn into her mouth and chewed slowly, contemplating pouring herself a fourth glass of wine. Not yet, she decided. Breakfast first.
She heard Félix’s intake of breath. When he spoke again, he sounded much less collected. “I had a hunch. Lila…”
Lila closed her eyes. There it was. She couldn’t handle his concern, not today. Not when she wasn’t able to stop imagining lingering traces of love in his voice. “Don’t ‘Lila’ me, Félix. What do you want?”
Félix sighed, producing a short burst of static on the other end. “Before… before everything, you promised me a piece for next month’s exhibit. Have you made any progress?”
Lila ate another handful of popcorn. She looked around her dusty, cluttered living room. How long had it been since she had had the energy to tidy in here? How long had it been since she had entered her studio, much less picked up a paintbrush?
The urge to lie bubbled up in her throat. It would be so easy to push Félix even further away. She could do it without thinking, without trying. He would probably let her.
Lila swallowed. She couldn’t do that, not anymore.
“No,” she said, so softly that for a moment she doubted whether Félix had heard her at all. “It’s been hard. Without you. Without her.” Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes, unbidden. For once, Lila did not wipe them away.
She could picture Félix’s expression. He always chewed his lower lip when he worried about her. For once, the thought was comforting rather than painful. So they weren’t married anymore. That didn’t mean they had to stop caring for each other. Maybe Lila just needed to learn to accept that care.
“I think I need help, Félix,” she whispered into the phone.
“Okay. Okay.” Lila couldn’t remember the last time Félix had spoken to her so gently. Before their daughter’s death, certainly. Before the drinking. Before the divorce. “I’m here for you, Lila,” said Félix. “All you have to do is let me in.”
Outside, a car door slammed.
Lila’s eyes widened. “Are you—”
“I’m right outside,” said Félix. “Please let me in, love. Let me help. Let’s start over.” She could hear the desperation in his voice.
Lila’s hands were shaking. He was here. He had come back. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “All right. I’m coming.”
By the time Lila had cleared away the empty wine bottles and changed into a clean shirt, Félix was on the doorstep. Lila’s stomach did a little flip at the sight of him. He had always dressed well, but she could tell he had arrived straight from work. And… had he lost weight? The shirt wasn’t as well-fitted as it ought to have been, and there were deep shadows beneath his eyes.
Félix straightened the collar of his wine-colored dress shirt, looking self conscious. “These aren’t meant to be a romantic gift,” he said, gesturing to the bouquet of irises in his arms. “I just… I thought you might need a subject. To paint.”
“They’re beautiful,” said Lila, taking them into her arms. The bouquet was heavier than she’d expected. She needed both arms to support it, which made her movements awkward as she ushered Félix inside and located a vase in one of the kitchen cabinets.
Lila had no idea if she would actually paint the irises. She wasn’t sure if she would ever paint again. Some days she thought she was almost ready to rejoin the world, but then she would step outside and see a sky the color of Meredith’s eyes or hear a child’s far off laugh and imagine it was her daughter, returned to her from death. Those days were the hardest of all.
Félix stood in the center of the living room, making a show of cleaning beneath his fingernails. He had sounded so confident on the phone, but now that he was here he seemed just as lost as Lila was. They had chosen this furniture together. She wished he would pick up one of the dusty, unread newspapers from the coffee table and flop onto the couch with it as he once had. She wished he would look at her.
And then he did, and Lila was lost again, lost in those deep green eyes and the memory of everything she had once had, everything she had taken for granted.
“I want to help,” said Félix, picking a piece of lint off his shirt. He was nervous, Lila realized. Of course he was nervous.
She had been so terrified of what it meant to lose Félix forever that she had never questioned if he felt the same way.
Lila took a deep breath. She smoothed her shirt. “I miss you,” she said. “I miss so many of the things we used to have. I’m not eating enough, and I can tell you aren’t, either.”
“I’m not,” said Félix. His voice cracked on the last syllable, and then, to Lila’s mingled horror and relief, he was crying. She reached for him, rubbed his back. He allowed it. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Me either,” said Lila. Admitting it at last was freeing. “Can—can we start with food? I have the ingredients for that beef curry you make.” She made a face. “Unless the coconut milk went off.”
Félix wiped his eyes. Despite the tears on his cheeks, he looked better than he had on the doorstep. “I would like that very much,” he said softly, kissing her forehead. “Dinner first.”
“It’ll have to be dishes first.” Lila discovered that she was still capable of laughter. She gestured to the mountain in the sink.
“Dishes, then.” She couldn’t remember the last time Félix had smiled at her like that. “And we’ll figure out the rest, one piece at a time.”