Page 41 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
It was only a year after that upturn that Natalie started spending more weekends at her friend Sally’s, claiming she wanted to let me have the house to myself to decompress after my stressful weeks. She only told me after a month’s worth of weekends away because I happened to come home right as she was leaving one Friday afternoon. Before that, I hadn’t noticed she wasn’t around because I had hardly come home to begin with.
It’s terrifying how long it took me to realize the other side of the king-size bed was empty, but that’s what happens when you crash at one in the morning and are up again at five every day. There’s no time to realize your wife isn’t there.
“We worked together in a research lab downtown,” Brooklyn says, pulling me back to the moment. “James was my boss.”
I am not letting her have this conversation while she’s standing on one foot in the middle of her kitchen. Flipping off the stove and the oven, I scoop her up into my arms and head to the couch. I get her settled on one end, take a seat on the other, and then I gesture for her to give me her injured foot.
“I didn’t know you worked in research,” I tell her to keep her going.
She nods and grabs a pillow to hug. “It was a facility here in Sun City that focuses on cancer treatment research,” she says quietly.
“I didn’t know that either.”
That gets a little smile out of her. “I really liked it. I felt like I was making a difference, you know?”
I shift my gaze to her foot while I ask this next part, guessing she would rather not have me staring at her while she tells me all about her half-cooked noodle of a boss. “You started dating your boss?”
She sniffs and takes a few seconds to reply. “Yeah. We had a lot of late nights. The other researchers on our team had families, so they didn’t often stay late. I liked having something to do, so I tended to stay after hours when it was quieter. James started staying with me and bringing in dinner. He said…”
I look up. “What?”
“He said I was the most dedicated employee he’d ever had, and he admired my conviction. He was always full of praise and very professional…in the beginning.” She hisses when I accidentally squeeze her swollen foot.
“Sorry,” I mutter and take hold of her other foot. I need to keep myself moving, and that one will be harder to accidentally injure. “What happened?”
She shrugs. “One night we were working late, and he kissed me. He told me he’d wanted to do it for a long time but didn’t want to cross any boundaries. He said he’d been holding back because he was pushing for me to get a promotion and a raise because I’d been working so hard.”
I stop rubbing her foot, instead letting my fingers curl into fists. I really don’t like where this is going. “Did you ever get the promotion?”
She shakes her head. There’s so much more to this story—somehow she ended up teaching instead of doing research—but she clearly doesn’t want to tell me. Can I keep pushing, or will that just make her clam up and pretend this conversation never happened?
I’m going to risk it. “Why did you break up with James?”
She opens her mouth. Looks at me. Closes it again. Then she says, “We hit a dead end in the research, and I lost my job instead. I was too humiliated to… I tried getting a job at another facility, but no one even called me for an interview. So I took up teaching and got alternative licensing. Those who can’t do, teach.”
There’s something she’s not telling me. I know there is. I have my suspicions, but without hearing it from her own mouth, I’m going to be left speculating and hating a guy who may or may not have been just as much of a jerk as the rest of her boyfriends have been.
I take up her hands in mine, every part of me aching to fix this for her. But there’s nothing I can fix, and I hate that. I hate that her confidence crumbled with one setback—okay, it was probably multiple setbacks if she applied with other companies—and I hate that she isn’t trusting me with the rest of this story. She doesn’t owe me anything, but I wish shewantedto tell me.
Swallowing, I ask my next question gently. “Do your siblings know that’s why you left research?”
Brooklyn doesn’t answer.
I swear under my breath. She’s been keeping this to herself for years? “Not even Micah?” But I know that answer too. I may not have spent a lot of time with the littlest Briggs—she was only fifteen when we graduated—but I remember Micah being the brightest ray of sunshine. The kind of person who can see the light in any situation, no matter how dark things seem. She would have fixed this already. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“And have them do what, exactly? Tell me it’s okay that I lost my dream job and only have one chance to try to get back into it? They can’t fix this, Jordan. No one can.”
I tilt my head. “What chance?”
Shrugging, she plays with the fringe on the nearest blanket. “I just found out I was nominated to be STEM Teacher of the Year at my school. If I get that and make it all the way to the state level and win, I can get a fellowship with the University of Sun City and get back into research that way. Hopefully learn a little more so I’m qualified for something.”
“That’s amazing, Queens.”
“I’m not going to get it.”
Those words hit me straight in the chest, and I have to resist the urge to rub my fingers along my sternum. She sounds so sure of that fact. “Of course you’ll get it,” I argue.
She scoffs. “There are four high schools in our district. Thirteen districts in the state. There are over eighty teachers trying to get this award, and that’s assuming I beat out Mark for our school’s pick in the first place.”
