Page 53 of The Apparent Trap

“You need to take it easy tonight. That was a lot on your system,” he says. “You’re really lucky you avoided a worst-case scenario there.”

I scoff and sit down on the bed, pouring myself a cup of tea, the aromatic scent helping me keep my calm amid this sea of Lee’s hovering. “I already lived through my actual worst-case scenario, with my mom,” I mumble, the dream from last night not done weighing on me. “I still survived. This is nothing.”

His eyes soften. He slowly pushes the plate of sandwiches toward me, and I lift one up and take a bite. Definitely BLTs.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says, sitting down on the far edge of the bed, as though he’s not sure it’s a good idea for us to sit too close. I nod, swallowing the BLT that I inevitably compare to his. None have been as good since Thanksgiving, and it’s annoying.

“Hasn’t it gotten better, though? Missing your mom?”

That vivid dream pulses with his words. It feels impossible to explain how visceral her loss still is, so many years later. “‘Better’ is sort of the wrong word,” I hedge.

“Sorry—” he starts, but I shake my head.

“No, not wrong in a bad way,” I explain. “It is better in the sense that the grief isn’t as constantly present and hard as it was in the beginning. But people talk about healing as time goes on, as though grief is a wound. And I think it’s the wrong description. Grief is more like . . . a room in your house, and you’ve just built more around it. You have more, so the hurt isn’t as acute . . . but it’s never healed. I’d rather jump in cold water a thousand times a day for the rest of my life than lose my mom.” He inclines his head in understanding. I take another sip of tea. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since you mentioned her at Thanksgiving. I guess I thought . . . Well, I’d hoped that when you go through something hard like that, that maybe it can get better eventually.”

I wonder if he’s thinking of Carmen. “Some hard things can be resolved. A lot of them can with time. Death is kind of just its own category.”

“True,” he says. He pours more tea for me and waits as I sip it. He nudges another sandwich forward, and I take it, like I’m in the gentlest eating contest and can’t possibly stop.

“It’s lucky, though,” he finally says quietly.

I furrow my brow. I don’t understand.

He sees my expression and sighs. “Having someone you loved so much you miss them like that.”

“You never had that?”

He purses his lips, unsure of whether to answer. I wait, not wanting to force him. I drink his ridiculous floral tea and try not to focus on how greedy I am for these details; like the shock of the cold and then the balm of the hot shower have turned me into putty, and I’m softened toward admitting I want to hear everything Lee will offer me.

“My mom left right after I was born,” he says, not at all what I was expecting, and I can’t help the small gasp that leaves me. He looks at me as though my problem is with breathing and not the shock of hearing him say something so wrenching. But when he sees I’m okay, he looks down, fidgeting with the teakettle on my tray. “My dad raised me, but he had three other older kids, and eventually I had a stepmom, but she wasn’t that involved in my life . . . It was fine, really. I had a lot of friends, and I started cooking young and worked in restaurants starting when I was a teenager, so it wasn’t like I was lacking.”

I have no idea how to respond. It’s such an unfathomable childhood to me; it rearranges the loss I had and reframes it as at least. At least I had my mom for as long as I did. At least I had something worth hurting that much for.

And all I can think to say is the most obvious truth. “I’m sorry you went through that.”

I hate that he shrugs, like it was nothing. “You can’t grieve something you didn’t have.”

He says the sentiment in such a practiced way that I wonder if he’s said it before.

“I think you can,” I reply, not wanting to let him write off his hurt so easily. “Absence is still a grief.”

His eyes snap to mine, and suddenly I cringe, thinking of Carmen. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I know what you meant.”

We’re both silent another moment, the thought seeping between us. “Did you . . .” I pause, not sure I can pry so far. But I can’t shake the question that’s been brewing. I don’t know how to square this introspective man with one who could leave his own daughter, knowing what that felt like.

“What?” he asks, noticing my hesitation.

“What happened with Carmen?”

“Recently?”

“No,” I say carefully. “When she was born.”

He exhales, the pain of the question sharp, like I’ve hit a bone.