Page 41 of Designed for Disaster

She nodded and gave me a faint smile. “Thanks for saying that. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was filled with good memories, so that’s something.”

“Do you mind if I ask how it happened?”

“It was a house fire,” she said in the tiniest voice I’d ever heard. “Faulty wiring.”

I let out a sigh. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Most people don’t,” she said. “Not even me. Every time I have to tell someone what happened, it feels like I’ve entered an alternate reality.”

I leaned back in my seat, watching the buildings rise up as we approached the Lincoln Tunnel. To lose one parent would have been devastating enough on its own, but to lose both so suddenly—how did you ever come back from that? I had a terrible relationship with my parents, but some part of me would still be deeply hurt to lose them.

“But it was nice to spend tonight remembering how supportive they were. Exactly like you are with Jimmy. If for some reason I couldn’t make ends meet, I always knew I could go home. That I had that security. But then they were suddenly gone, and by the time I’d settled the estate, pretty much all the money was used up. The house was a total loss too.”

“Did you have insurance?”

She nodded. “But it wasn’t enough to rebuild or anything in this market. I had to sell the property. I ended up with a little moneyin the bank from that, but there’s no safety net left. I realized then that I was on my own for the first time in my life…and for the rest of my life. That’s a scary thought sometimes.”

My chest constricted. I’d never truly appreciated my position—the safety nets I had all over. Financially, I never had to worry about making ends meet. But more than that, thanks to Nana Dee and the Lost Boys, I’d never had to face anything alone. No matter what happened, I knew I would always have their support. “Natasha, I?—”

She shook her head. “It’s fine. Really. You don’t have to try to make me feel better. It was a really shitty thing that happened, but you know…what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or whatever they say.”

“Has it?” I asked quietly. I didn’t know how anyone could possibly come back from that kind of hurt and loss without losing a piece of themselves. Now that I knew, Natasha felt like a completely different person. I had no idea how she carried around this weight every day. Just the thought of losing Nana Dee to her disease was enough to paralyze me with fear sometimes. How Natasha continued moving through life after losing so much was beyond me.

“I guess I’ve learned to be self-reliant,” she said. “Not that there was really a choice. But having to make it on my own…It’s taught me not to depend on anyone.”

I hated the sound of that. “There must besomeoneyou can count on?”

Her lips twisted. “In my experience, they all let you down one way or another. I’ve been hurt plenty of times by people I thought would come through for me. Bosses. Boyfriends. Andeven though I know they didn’t mean to, my parents stopped being there for me too. There isn’t anyone you can count on to always be there.”

Ooof. “Feels like a lonely way to live.”

“I suppose it is,” she said. “But if you don’t rely on anyone, then you don’t have to worry about anyone breaking your heart. I’ve got some close friends—Stacy closest of all. But I don’t depend on her. I don’t depend on anyone.”

My heart ached for her. Truly. “I can’t even begin to understand what you went through.”

She frowned at me. “I’m hardly the only person in the world who’s lost someone. You’ve been through it yourself, haven’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“I mean…your grandfather. Davis. You’ve lost him.”

“I did,” I agreed.

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.” It felt like a lifetime ago. “But I think that was different. When Papa Davis died…Well, first of all, it was expected. He’d been sick for a while, so in a way there was time to make peace with it and to say our goodbyes.”

“I’d imagine that makes it easier in some ways, but probably harder in others,” Natasha said.

“True,” I admitted. “I’m not saying it was easy on anyone, especially Nana Dee. But it wasn’t a shock. More than that, I had family around.”

“I’m sure watching Nana Dee go through that must have been difficult. I know how much she means to you.”

She wasn’t wrong. I supposed having family around weighed on me in its own way. Nana Dee was usually my support person, but she’d been too grief-stricken at the time to be much support to anyone. And Jimmy was just a baby, only about a year old. Way too young to understand what was going on. “I guess there was a part of me that had to set aside my own grief,” I said. “At least to make sure Dee and Jimmy were okay.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a kid,” Natasha said. “Because that’s what you were.”

“But even that was better than not having anyone,” I said. “What you’ve been through is so much worse.”

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