“Oh, for God’s sake, Patrick. What you’re giving me—at least up until about Thanksgiving night at eight o’clock, when you moved into this stupid alcove of doom—has been just fine, thank you very much. And anyway, I get to say if it’s enough for me or not. You don’t get to say that. And I think we’re good here.”

He sighs and shakes his head. Then, in a very quiet voice, he says: “No. I can’t give you babies.”

The room goes so quiet, it’s like all the air went out of it.

“Can’t or won’t?” I say at last.

“I-I’m sterile.”

I feel like I’m underwater, and everything is coming in and out of focus. And then my brain clears. “But wait, that’s not true. You already have a child! You’re not sterile.” I say this as though I’m a brilliant student, and I’ve located a loophole he hasn’t thought of.

“I am. Sterile. From the fire,” he says. “The damage from the fire—it happens.”

“So . . . what then? You’ve been lying to me? All this time while I was trying to get pregnant? You couldn’t ever do it, but you let me think—”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I had forgotten.”

I actually laugh. A high-pitched, strangled laugh. “What do you mean, you forgot? How does somebody forget something like that?”

He sighs. “I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago to get my meds refilled. And I asked him about fertility, and he told me it’s impossible, since the accident. He said he’d told me, but I didn’t remember. Maybe I didn’t really care back then so I didn’t take it in. But the bottom line is that pregnancy is impossible. I’m sorry. You need to find someone else and get on with your life.”

I stare at him. “You’re not sorry! You never even wanted me to get pregnant. Don’t act now like you’re sorry. This is the most convenient thing that’s ever happened to you and you know it.”

“I’m sorry that you see it that way, because I don’t think of this as convenient at all,” he says.

“Ohhh! So this is why you want to break up?” I say. I’m angry now. “Basically, what you’re saying is that because you can’t give me babies, you get to decide for both of us that we shouldn’t be together anymore. No asking me what I want. Or what I think. Maybe I would understand and prefer to have you in my life instead of babies, did you ever think of that? That that’s what love might consist of? Working on a solution together? No other solution occurs to you except living in a cave, being miserable, you and your cat. Running over to Paco’s for food and running back again. Except now, I’m pretty sure there won’t be Paco’s close by because no doubt you’re not going to want to remain in this building, while I generate all this chaos around. That’d be weird for you, wouldn’t it?”

He looks shaken, I’m pleased to see.

“So what do you envision happening?” I say. “What about Fritzie? Are you thinking that you and she are going to move somewhere else? Or are you going to fly her to Italy and give her back to her mom?”

He shrugs. “We’ll have to work out some things,” he says quietly.

I’m staring at the statues and there’s a loud buzzing in my ears, and so I’m surprised to realize that he’s still talking. Going on in a sad, defeated voice about how he’ll try to come up with a workable solution, something that makes sense for all of us. He’s not sure just yet what it will entail. For the time being, though, maybe he could stay in the studio? Out of my way?

Anger breaks over me in waves, a whole tsunami of fury. I have to make a fist to keep from picking up every one of those sculptures and hurling them at him. Patrick is so broken he doesn’t even know how to break up properly. You’re supposed to make it clean and respectful, state your position, and then get the hell out. Leave everybody a shred of dignity.

I need to get away from him. I don’t want to stand here listening to his drifty talk about the next stages—the moving out, or what nebulous plan he has for Fritzie. It seems to me that a man who is orchestrating a freaking wimp-ass breakup like this should have thought of all that before.

Help! I think. Blix, look at what’s happening here! Remind him what’s important.

I give it a minute, just in case Blix has a little magic to contribute. A watery winter sunbeam is half-heartedly breaking through the dusty window, and I stare at the parallelogram it’s forming on the oak floor. Blix is silent, the dust motes are silent, Patrick turns away, and the anger at the center of me is the only thing I can hold on to with any certainty.

And then I turn and walk out of his studio and slam the door behind me as hard as I can.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

PATRICK

Patrick picks up two of the Annelieses who fell over when the door slammed and straightens them out, finds them a suitable location on the table where they’ll be safe. The least he can do is keep the plaster Annelieses safe.

He certainly can’t keep anything else safe, he thinks. He’s crap at life right now.

But—despite the hollowness in the pit of his stomach, despite the fact that he might very well throw up any second, he knows he’s done the right thing. Telling her. Breaking up with her was never going to be easy, but it was going to be far harder to carry on like this, watching her get progressively more disappointed.

She’ll soon realize that she’s still young enough now to find a guy who will want babies with her. She can go off to have all those things she once texted him she wanted—the Boppies and sippies and socks with lace and whatevers. Three years, tops, and she’ll be a woman pushing a stroller with a baby and a diaper bag and a gorgeous husband trotting alongside looking pleased with himself. Looking so smug it’ll be like they invented procreation.

And even though she’s miserable right now, it’s so much better that he did it this way, just ripped that little bandage right off, rather than letting things remain in a downward spiral, both of them thinking that love was going to be enough to see them through. When it wasn’t. This was actually an act of kindness on his part, releasing her to the life she was meant for.

Someday, he’ll be able to say the truth to her: “I broke up with you because I loved you and I wanted you to have the life you’re truly meant for.”

But for now, he’ll just have to put up with her fury.

And of course he needs to start thinking about a plan. Maybe he’ll suggest that he move back to the basement, when Ariana moves out. That way Fritzie’s life will be disrupted as little as possible. In the meantime, he’ll stay out of Marnie’s way, be a polite houseguest who helps with dinner and the dishes, takes the dog for a walk, pays for things, and doesn’t ruffle any feathers. He can be pleasant for—what? Five more months.

And then after that he’ll get his own place. Alone. Somewhere.

He stands there looking at the collection of Annelieses, and he feels proud in a way he’s not felt in a long time. It hurt his hands, forming them, which only served to make them more worthwhile. He hadn’t thought he could ever do sculpture again. It wasn’t going to be possible with all the nerve damage, with the scars. And even so, some days he hurt so bad that he had to get up in the middle of the night and wrap his hands in ice just so he could move his fingers. He lived on ibuprofen and some naturopathic salve he’d found at the health store.