Chapter 6 - TUESDAYS
Tuesday became sacred.
Not metaphorically.
Operationally.
I blocked the entire afternoon every week.
My assistant, Denise, almost fainted.
“No calls?”
“Emergency only.”
“What qualifies?”
“Someone actively dying.”
“Portfolio company bankruptcy?”
“No.”
She stared at me.
“Who are you?”
Emma noticed before anyone else.
First Tuesday:
Zoo.
Second:
Library.
Third:
I sat through a forty-five-minute puppet show in which a raccoon learned to share.
Private equity had never tested me like that.
Fourth:
Emma got a fever.
I stayed.
No conference call from hallway.
No laptop.
Rebecca watched me suspiciously.
At 2:00 a.m., Emma woke.
“Daddy?”
“Here.”
That one word changed something.
For both of us.
Rachel and I spoke occasionally.
Not every day.
She moved from transitional housing into a modest apartment in Jamaica Plain four months later.
Her own lease.
Her own deposit.
She refused my help with both.
I respected it.
She was promoted at the grocery store.
Then began night classes in medical billing.
Lucy started kindergarten.
Derek accepted a plea agreement on the kidnapping-related case and remained subject to strict custody restrictions.
Rachel no longer jumped every time her phone rang.
Not always.
Healing is rarely complete.
One spring afternoon, Rachel called.
“Lucy wants to know if billionaires eat hot dogs.”
“We do.”
“She says prove it.”
So we met at a public park.
Emma was with me.
First time the girls met.
Within eight minutes they had abandoned the adults and were digging something disgusting near a tree.
Rachel watched Emma.
“She looks like you.”
“Poor child.”
“She has Rebecca's eyebrows?”
“You've never met Rebecca.”
“Divorce photos online.”
I groaned.
“Of course.”
Then:
“How is it?”
“What?”
“Being there.”
I knew what she meant.
“Harder than buying things.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because hard things change you.”
I looked at her.
“You always speak like a refrigerator magnet?”
“Only around billionaires.”
We laughed.
Something was growing between us.
I noticed.
So did she.
Neither touched it.
Too soon.
Our connection began during crisis.
That can imitate intimacy.
We both knew enough now not to confuse rescue with romance.
Months passed.
Then one evening Rachel called me crying.
Not because of Derek.
Because she had completed her certification.
“Congratulations.”
“I got a job.”
“Where?”
“Mass General billing department.”
I smiled.
“That sounds dangerously respectable.”
“Benefits.”
“Now you're showing off.”
Then she said:
“I wanted you to be the first person I told.”
Silence.
There it was.
Not emergency.
Choice.
I asked her to dinner.
She said no.
I laughed.
“Why?”
“You're not ready.”
“Excuse me?”
“You're still proving things to yourself.”
“That sounds insulting.”
“It is diagnostic.”
Three months later, she asked me.
“Dinner?”
“Are you ready now?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“But maybe you are.”
We went.
No expensive restaurant.
Sullivan’s Diner.
Linda saw us enter and shouted:
“I knew it!”
Rachel turned around to leave.
I caught up.
“Please don't abandon me here.”
She laughed.
We sat in my old corner booth.
May you like
This time somebody was waiting across from me.
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