Page 78 of Plus One

“And you were in her program too.”

He nodded.

“I’m starting to think it was more than that, though.”

He cocked his head in question.

“I know Aunties Don and Deb have been together my whole life, even before Uncle Tommie passed. I can count. But Fairbanks and Returning Home started in Philly, then moved to Newark. And now she’s been in Chicago like eight times in three years. Talking to my kids, fixing things in my house. Andyou’reher guy?”

“Chicago?” Maurice said slowly.

“Dude. You didn’t know?”

“I stay in my lane.”

“I see that.” She gave him a hard look, but her lips pulled into a smirk.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not exactly.”

“What’s the opposite of that?”

“I don’t know. But I am getting pretty tired of these lanes.”

“So, it’s not bad, and it’s not good.”

“Now, I didn’t say it wasn’t a good thing.”

“But is it bad?” He smiled because she was smiling.

Monique bumped her knee against his. “Cut it out.”

She went stiff. Her knee was still against his, but her smile vanished.

“What’s going on?” he asked, reaching for her hands.

Monique kept her head down and pressed her palms together in her lap. “You left.”

“I did.”

“You promised you wouldn’t.”

He had. After the calm, the noise came like a thousand sirens. “I am sorry.”

She nodded slow, like she was processing all the things he wasn’t saying.

“Okay,” she said. It almost sounded like a question. Then she turned to him and held his eyes. “Okay.”

This lightness that bloomed between them relaxed his nervous system. They shared easiness. They could talk, smile, and lean into each other even when everything was so heavy around them. Especially when things were heavy.

“Tell me about Chickie,” he said, his hand finally on hers.

Monique turned her head, not looking at him but also not letting his hand go. “She’s twenty-eight. And she’s been dying her whole life. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. But she’s”—Monique took in a shaking breath—“she’s so alive, man, more alive than most people.”

Maurice listened to her talk about her support group and their inside jokes that he had become the butt of. She talked about the friendship they’d forged that was literally lifelong.

“Some of us, like Eleanor, have been in remission for well over a year and keep showing up because cancer changes you, and not just on the inside. We get her and make her feel normal.”