Page 66 of Isn't It Obvious?
Suresh’s face tenses. “I cyah exactly reschedule this.”
He looks like he’s ready to argue if it comes to that, and Ravi doesn’t have the energy. He takes a deep breath and says, “Doh worry about the doctor. I’ll take her myself.”
Suresh blinks. “You’re sure?” Ravi nods. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll call a Lyft and leave you the car.”
“Can you stick around until I get myself ready?”
“Of course. Thank you,” Suresh says again.
Ravi waves him off, and Suresh tugs Mia out of the room with him. He looks at his phone. No client meetings today, just the call with Jami fromRenegadeat eleven. He sends her a message asking to reschedule for Wednesday next week, grabs his clothing for the day, and heads down the hall to shower as quickly as he can.
Fifteen minutes later, he relieves Suresh of Mia supervision duty, and Suresh expresses his gratitude yet again. The moment the door closes behind him, Mia reaches for her eye.
“No, Mia!” Ravi lunges for her, but it’s too late. “Don’t touch anything else. Let’s go wash our hands, okay?”
She nods, tears welling. “But it’s so itchy. And it hurts.”
“I know. We’re going to get something from the doctor that will help, but until then, you have to be really brave.”
Mia sniffles but lets Ravi lead her to the bathroom. He pulls out the stool for her with his foot and nudges on the faucet with his elbow, afraid to touch anything since his hand was in hers. They scrub together, singing through the ABCs twice, and then he parks her on the toilet while he googles what he can do to make her more comfortable for the next couple hours and if there’s any possible way to make a four-year-old stop touching her face.
He runs a washcloth under hot water to wipe away the crust from her lashes, then a cold one to soothe some of the itch. It seems to help with the swelling, too, and the skin around Mia’s eye calms to something approximating its usual hue.
They play Connect Four. Mostly to keep Mia’s hands occupied and directly in his line of sight.
“Dada, are you coming to see Mommy with me?” Mia asks after she drops her sixth token right into the trap Ravi set for her.
Ravi tilts his head, observing her. “Do you want me to?”
“Your turn,” she says.
He drops his token for the kill, and he watches her eyes scan across the diagonal, counting.
She pouts, reaching for the slider. “Again?”
“Sure,” Ravi says. “Do you want me to come with you and Daddy?” He doesn’t particularly want to see Margot, but if she wants him there, he will be.
She only shrugs. “Just asking,” she says, and begins the process of dividing up the tokens into red and blue piles.
Ravi watches for another few moments, but it seems like she really was just asking.
She doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of the game. He feels like he’s holding his breath the whole day, waiting for her to break down and say she doesn’t want to see Margot, or that she misses her, or that Ravi should come, or anything at all. But she never does. She cries at the pediatrician but eventually lets Dr. Hannah administer the first dose of antibiotic eye drops, and then all is well when they stop at a Ben & Jerry’s (a very good prize for a very brave girl) on the way home.
Maybe he’s projecting, being so worried about how this will be for her. She’s at such an elastic age—maybe this can just be her normal, and she’ll never know any different. How much time has Mia had with Margot, really? In the year before she left for good, she’d often been gone for weeks at a time to “line up a buyer” for the vineyard. Her absence has been the only constant since before Mia turned three.
Mia lives with two people who love her and care for her. She has enough of a community of kids her age to be at a birthday party practically every other weekend. Margot can be a once-a-year family bonus. The cherry on top of her warm brownie sundae—not something fundamentally missing from her life.
Ravi spends the afternoon and evening convincing himselfof this. And when Suresh finds him after putting Mia to bed to talk about their schedule for driving out tomorrow, Ravi is able to wish them a nice visit sincerely.
By the time he goes to sleep, Ravi is actually looking forward to a weekend alone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“ANYWAY,” Gina says, sitting atop the checkout counter and drumming her fingernails on the laminate. “Is thirty-seven too old to be having a bisexual awakening?”
Yael looks around, but the only other person in the library is sitting in the far corner with noise-canceling headphones on. “No,” she says firmly.
“Are you sure?”
