I find myself getting excited when I look at the clock. It’s been almost two days since I’ve seen him. He was on call over the weekend, and the hospital was so busy, he just decided to sleep there. I’m sure he’s so used to sleeping at work that it doesn’t bother him. Me, however—even though Ellie and I have only been here for six weeks, I find it lonely in the apartment when he’s not around.
Nothing has changed between us in the past few weeks. Nothing except I can tell he’s fighting his feelings more and more. He has to catch himself sometimes before he touches me. And often when we sit on the couch and watch late-night TV, he absentmindedly plays with my hair. He really seems to like my hair.
He rarely slips up and calls me Elizabeth anymore, which is funny, because outside of our circle of friends, that is exactly who I am. The doormen to our building, the residents who use the fitness room, the little old couple who own the corner market—they all know me as Elizabeth. After all, that’s what my birth certificate and photo ID say.
Ellie starts to fuss in her highchair as I’m chopping up vegetables for dinner. Kyle walks through the front door just as she breaks out into a full-on scream. I know this scream. This is her ‘I’ve pooped my pants and I don’t want to sit in it’ scream.
Kyle watches what I’m doing in the kitchen for a few seconds, then he unstraps Ellie and picks her up. “I’ll go change her,” he says. “You’ve got your hands full.”
“Thanks,” I say, smiling from ear to ear as he carries her away. I smile because he knows that scream, too. I smile because he’s not her daddy, yet he’s changing her diaper—and not for the first time. I smile because if anyone would look through our window on any given night, they would think we are a family.
But then I frown, because we aren’t a family. We’re roommates. Roommates who give each other time and space, apparently.
I’m drowning in time and space. Can’t he see that? What will it take to get him to make the decision that he wants to be with me?
Maybe he already has. Maybe the decision is he doesn’t want me in his life—not like that anyway.
“All clean,” Kyle says, bringing her back into the room.
Ellie looks at me as they approach the kitchen. She lifts her hand up and touches her chin with her thumb.
My eyes go wide. “Kyle, did she just . . .?”
Ellie does it again, smiling at me.
“Oh, my God, she did!” I squeal. “She just called me Mommy!”
Kyle does the sign as well and then touches me on the shoulder, just as he always does. Ellie repeats the sign for the third time, looking at me and smiling.
Tears are spilling from my eyes at the first real communication from my baby girl. I hug her in Kyle’s arms as we cheer and turn in circles, our arms around each other, Ellie swimming in laughter between us.
“Thank you,” I say to Kyle. “Thank you for teaching it to her. I can’t believe that was her first word. It never would have happened if it weren’t for you.”
“Of course it was her first word,” he says. “You are the most important person to her, Lex.”
We step apart and Kyle puts Ellie back into her highchair, sitting next to her at the table so he can spoon some strained peas into her mouth.
“I really needed that after my day,” he says.
I bring a bowl of salad over to the table. “Tough one, huh?”
He nods.
I go back in the kitchen and get the chicken casserole, setting it on a hotplate before I sit down. “You know,” I say, with the faintest trace of humor. “Some wise doctor once told me not to keep things inside or they will eat away at you.”
“Some wise doctor, huh?” he asks, his mouth twitching in amusement.
“Yeah, well he thinks he’s wise. But I just think he’s a wiseass.”
He chuckles, scooping another bite of peas into Ellie’s mouth.
“So, this tough day. Was it tougher than Rosita?” I ask.
His eyes snap to mine. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do. That was the day everything changed,” I tell him. “Before that, you always went to Gina for comfort. But that day you came to me. That’s the day I knew—”
I stop talking. I stop talking because sometimes I forget we’re not together and some things are not appropriate for us to say to one another. I busy myself dishing out dinner for the two of us.
“That’s the day you knew what, Lexi?”
I shrug as I carefully compose my answer. “That maybe there could be something more.”
He nods in understanding. Then he studies me. “Wait, you knew about me and Gina? I mean, I know I told you we had . . . something maybe, but I don’t ever remember getting into the particulars with you.”
“What was it you told me once? Nurses love to gossip? I was in the hospital for almost a month, Kyle. I heard all kinds of things.”
He takes a bite of casserole. “Wow, this is really good. You know I don’t expect you to cook for me. After all, you are paying me rent—which I’d like to go on record as saying you absolutely don’t need to do.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I say. “I know I don’t have to cook for you. That’s probably why I like to. And, for the record, the pittance I’m paying you for rent is just a token of my appreciation and we both know it. Anyway, you’re missing the point. I was trying to get you to talk about your day.”
He blows out a strong breath. “I told you I’m doing my PICU rotation, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Pediatrics, right?”
“Not just pediatrics, pediatric intensive care,” he says.
I look at Ellie. “That must be really hard.”
“It is. But kids are strong. Resilient. Most of the outcomes are good. But today . . .” He looks over to the window and I could swear he’s trying to keep from crying. “Today, there was a kid about my nephew’s age. He wasn’t even three years old and already he’d had a dozen surgeries. He needed a heart-lung transplant, but he had a very specific blood type and we couldn’t find him the organs in time. I sat and watched his parents say goodbye.”
He chokes up, getting up from the table to grab a bottle of wine. He brings it and two glasses back into the dining room.
“I know what you need,” I tell him.
He raises his eyebrows at me. “You mean besides the wine?”
I stand up and go into the kitchen, bringing the large cookie jar out, putting it on the table in front of him. “You need a fortune cookie.”
“I do?” he asks, pouring me a glass of wine.
I nod, taking the lid of the jar off. “You do.”
He reaches in and pulls out a cookie. After breaking it apart and popping the halves into his mouth, he reads the fortune to himself, drawing his eyebrows together.
“Well, what does it say?” I ask, curiously.
“It says ‘Sometimes you just need to lie on the floor’.”
I take it from him, scanning it over before I laugh. Then I take Ellie out of her highchair and put her down on her blanket with her favorite toys. Then I lie down on the area rug between the couch and the television and I stare at the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Come on, Kyle. You can’t mess with ancient Chinese proverbs.”
“That is not a Chinese proverb, Lex.”
“Okay, then you can’t mess with the guy in Boston who sits around for days on end coming up with deep existential bullshit.”
He snorts and then walks over to look down on me. “Fine. In the name of deep existential bullshit, I shall lie on the floor.”
He lies down next to me and we both stare at the ceiling, trying not to smile and make each other laugh. We lie here for minutes, silent and anticipating. Anticipating what, I don’t know.
“Is it working?” I ask.
He turns his head to look at me. “Hell if I know,” he says, his eyes taking in the apartment from this new vantage point. “But the next time I clean the apartment, remind me to move the coffee table. I think there are a hundred Cheerios under there.”
I giggle and he smiles. Yeah, I’d say it’s working.
He turns on his side and rises up on an elbow, taking a lock of my hair and working it between his fingers. “Thanks,” he says.
“Anytime.”
He stares at me as his face inches closer. It happens in slow motion—his gaze flitters between my lips and my eyes. His hand moves from my hair to my shoulder. His body moves closer so he’s almost on top of me.
When his lips finally find mine, my body heaves at the intimate familiarity. I’ve only kissed him a few times before, but my body knows what to expect. It anticipates every movement of his lips, and our mouths move together in a synchronized dance only we can perform.
But then, as quickly as it started, the kiss ends and he pulls away, rolling back to where he was as my lips and my body long for more.
“I’m sorry,” he says, leaning his head back onto the floor with a thud.
Those two words say it all.
I close my eyes. “You’re confusing me, Kyle. Do you want me, or don’t you?”
He takes a deep breath. And then another. “Jesus, Lexi, of course I want you,” he says. “But—”
“But what?” I ask, keeping my eyes shut to protect me from his words.
“But I want all of you, Lex.”
“I’m giving you all that I have to give, Kyle.”
“I know,” he says. “I just have to figure out if that’s enough.”
Little hands slap my chest and my eyes fly open to see that Ellie has crawled over to join us. I pull her over the top of my chest, positioning her between Kyle and me. She laughs, playing with us on the floor.
Kyle sits up and pulls her favorite book off the coffee table. He reads it to her with the signs I’ve taught him. Ellie settles into his lap, pointing at the pictures as he tries to teach her the signs.
It makes me wonder if she’ll ever need to learn the sign for ‘Daddy.’
Kyle looks like a daddy. He even acts like a daddy. But he can never be her daddy.
And maybe that’s why this will never be enough.