Page 85 of The Devil Gets His Due

KEELEY

Though I’m listening for him, I don’t wake when he gets in, and he’s gone when I get up. I check the kitchen for a note from him, perhaps sarcastically asking me not to eat all the fruit as if I’d ever willingly eat fruit, but there’s nothing.

He’s just gone, and the apartment has never felt so empty. I didn’t realize how much I liked hearing him demand projections and bark orders I don’t understand as I got ready for work.

I take Mark his breakfast, something Graham does at least half the time now and stop for a second though I know I’m going to be double booked all day.

“Did Graham get out okay this morning?” Mark asks. “That was a tough break, Prescott leaving like that.”

“Prescott?” I repeat weakly.

“The guy running the New York office. We’ll see if Jody can step up but I kind of doubt it. And not because she’s a woman. I just don’t think she’s going to be forceful enough forthatcrew.”

I know none of this, yet Graham knows all about Dr. Fox and her weekly appointment to get her roots done, and how Trinny was doing a juice fast and got the runs. Is it Graham’s fault for not telling me, or my fault for not asking? It’s not as if he greets me at the door every night saying,“tell me everything.”I just do, and he does not.

“How do you know about all that?”

Mark shrugs. “I had the same job, you know, and it’s stressful as hell. Graham’s a young guy with a good head on his shoulders. I’m just keeping tabs to make sure it stays that way.”

“Maybe I should have been asking more questions,” I say quietly.

Mark shakes his head. “You’re already performing the most important role, and it’s the one thing I really needed back then.”

“What’s that?”

“You give him a reason to wake up in the morning, Keeley.” He laughs when my mouth opens to argue. “No, not the baby.You.”

I getthrough another long day at work, followed by a lonely night without him.

By Thursday, I miss him so much I can barely stand it. I walk into his room—the door is open, it’s not like I’m prying—and sit on his bed. The pillow smells like his shampoo. On the right wall, he’s begun to consolidate his stuff so there’ll be room to place the crib on the left. It’s already beginning, this process of him separating himself from us. Maybe that’s part of the reason he went back to New York.

I lie down on my side and cry, realizing far too late that my mascara is all over his pillowcase. “Well done, Keeley,” I sigh. Rosa’s not even in for the rest of the week, and I’m never getting that stain out on my own. I’ll blame it on the crib delivery guys, I guess.

Once I’ve pulled myself together, I call him. He’s out, though it’s late there—I hear glasses clinking and laughter.

“Is everything okay?” he shouts over the din.

I briefly consider claiming my water has broken, but that’ll be hard to play off when it breaks a second time later on. “It’s fine!” I shout back. “I had a question about the crib but it can wait!”

A text comes through only a second later.

Graham: Sorry about that. You said something about the crib?

Me: I figured it out, but thanks.

Graham: Is everything okay?

I hesitate. No, nothing is okay. I’m sad, and I miss him, and I don’t know why he hasn’t told me any of things other people seem to know. Graham is the type of guy who keeps it all close to his vest, or so I thought, but if he can tell Mark something, surely he can tell me?

Me: Why didn’t you tell me Presley quit?

Graham: Prescott? How do you even know who Prescott *is*?

Me: Mark. You can tell me that stuff, you know.

Graham: I thought you said everything about my work was boring.

Me: It is. It’s super boring. But I still want to know.

---