He was making an effort. I had to give him that.

“He seems better,” I said to Evelyn. “He’s showering again, I think.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And he’s not out all night at bars anymore.”

“Progress,” I said.

“But,” she said then, taking my hand and squeezing it, “I don’t think he’s happy.”

Happy? Was that an option? I was just shooting for “conscious.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she went on. “I’m worried about him.”

“I’m worried about all of us,” I said.

But she had something to say, and she was going to say it. “He’s been so crushed by what happened. It really has torn him to shreds. He has to force himself to come here every time he visits. Every time he looks at your poor face, the guilt is just overwhelming.”

“Are you asking me to feel sorry for Chip?”

Her voice took an indignant turn. “It’s been hard on him, too, Margaret.”

“I’m sure it has. Hard on his liver, at the very least.”

“Not everyone is as strong as you are.”

“I’m not strong. I’m just trapped. My body keeps breathing against my will.”

She wasn’t having it. “Don’t be dramatic.”

I leaned back against my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. I was giving up my nap for this.

Evelyn took that moment to get herself back on track. “Chip’s father and I have talked about it, and we’d like to ask a favor of you.”

I opened my eyes. “A favor?”

“You know how loyal Chip is. You know how important it is to him to do the right thing. You know he would never, ever let himself call off your engagement.”

“I’m not even sure that we are technically engaged,” I said. Had we settled that?

“You’re wearing my mother’s two-carat diamond. I think that counts.”

“If you say so.”

“I’m just not sure what your expectations are—given your situation.”

Where was this headed? “My situation that Chip caused?”

“You wouldn’t want him to marry you out of guilt, would you?”

“What are you saying?”

She sat back a bit. “He’s in a very strange predicament.”

“Aren’t we fucking all?”

“Please watch your language.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

She blinked at me for a second. “We’re all coping the best we can.”

“Some of us better than others.” My thoughts started spinning. “Hold on—did he send you here? Did he send his mother to break up with me?”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

“So you just decided this was any of your business?”

“My child is my business.”

“He’s not a child!”

She sat up a little straighter. “A marriage—starting a lifetime together—needs a strong foundation of…” She seemed to cast around for the word. “Desire.”

Desire? Were we talking about sex now? “Desire?”

“Among other things.”

A strange, acid anger started burning in my chest. She did not just walk into this room and creepily tell me her son no longer wanted to screw me. “Oh, he’s got plenty of desire,” I said. She really wanted to get into this? This was where she wanted to go? Fine. We’d go there. I could go there all day.

“He’s got desire in the golf house at the club,” I said. “And in his childhood bedroom. And on the garden bench beside your weird little cherub statues. And in your master-bath Jacuzzi when you’re on vacation. And even in the kitchen pantry during Christmas dinner. Your ‘child’ is a tenth-degree horn-dog. He’s got more than enough desire. I think he’ll find a way to manage.”

I wanted it to feel good to attack her like that, but it didn’t.

Evelyn stayed still as stone. “That was before,” she said at last. “Things have changed.”

“Yes they fucking have.”

She turned her face away at that word—again. “Chip’s father and I feel that he’s looking for something else now. Something he can’t find in you.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Do you?”

Her face was solemn. “He says he wants to be with you, but we can plainly see his actions.”

“What actions?”

She closed her mouth as if I’d asked some wildly inappropriate question. As if she wasn’t the person who had brought the whole thing up in the first place.

“You’re not going to tell me?” I demanded. “What actions are you talking about?”

I could see that she realized she’d said too much.

I leaned forward. “Tell me,” I said, my voice menacing.

She turned away.

As she did, we both caught sight of a figure in the doorway.

Chip.

If I could have slapped him across the face right then, I would have. “Did you send your mother to break up with me?”

Chip looked at his mother. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to help you.” Her voice suddenly got wobbly. “Your father and I are very worried.” She lifted her hand to her face, and I realized she was wiping away tears. All at once, she looked very fragile—and I regretted, a little, how many times I’d just said “fuck.”

A son can’t be angry with his crying mother. His voice got tender. “Mom,” he said. “You can’t help me. Don’t help me, okay?”

He came over, helped her stand, and steered her out of the room. As he did, he held up his hand at me to say five minutes. I guessed he was going to walk her back to the hospital valet and send her home.

Once they were gone, I noticed my breathing was ragged, and my chest stung a little, as if the imaginary acid had burned some kind of sad, hollow hole. I spent several minutes trying to tell myself that it was good to feel something, at least, before deciding that was bullshit. Why was it that the only emotions that seemed able to penetrate my fog were the worst of the worst?

When Chip made it back, I noticed then that he looked—for the first time since the accident—just exactly like his old self. Here was the Chip I’d fallen in love with. Here was the Chip who had it all together, ready to confidently stand at the helm of anything and everything. He looked picture-perfect. He’d gotten a haircut. He was wearing a crisp polo and pressed khakis. He’d brushed his teeth—and even possibly flossed.

It was a powerful thing to see him again. It was like the real Chip had been gone all this time, but now he’d finally come back, and all that toughness and resistance I felt about the new Chip disintegrated as soon as I saw the old one again.

“Are we engaged?” I asked him then, my voice soft. “Did we ever settle that?”

He gave me his famous Chip Dunbar smile. “You know we are, on my end at least.” He was flirting with me! “Your position’s a little less clear. But you’re still wearing the ring.”

“Your mother thinks,” I said, making air quotes, “that you don’t ‘desire’ me anymore.”

He let out a honk of a laugh and then sat in the chair his mother had just vacated, grabbing my hand in a very similar way. “I do. Oh, my God, I still do—so much—”

I felt myself release a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. I felt a pinch of hope that things might turn out okay for us, after all.

Until he went on. “The old you.”

What?

“I think about her all the time.” Chip pressed his forehead down against my hand, and his shoulders started to shake. “I miss her so much,” he said, all muffled.

“You miss her? She’s not gone,” I said, not even trying to disguise my astonishment. “She’s literally right here.”

Was Chip crying? Again? “I miss her hair,” he went on. “And how she walked in heels. And the way her jeans hugged her hips.”

That was just mean. “You realize you’re talking about me in the third person,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Your mother thinks you’re going ahead with the engagement out of guilt,” I said next. “She thinks you don’t want to marry me anymore, but now that you’ve, you know, paralyzed me, you feel like you have to.”

“No.” He shook his head as he lifted it. “I still want to marry you. I want that more than anything.”

“Her? The girl you miss? Or me?” As if we weren’t the same person. “The old me or the current me?”

“Any you I can get my hands on.”

That made me smile—a little. I wanted that sunshiny feeling back again. “So you do still want to marry me?”

“More than I can possibly say.”

It felt good to hear it. I won’t lie.

Chip sat up straight then and let go of my hand to wipe his face. He took a deep breath, as if he might be about to shout something, and then he held it a second. When the words came out at last, they just seeped out in a whisper. “I want to marry you, Margaret. But I think I can’t.”

I held still.

He lowered his eyes. “I think,” he went on, “in the end, you’re not going to let me.”

Then, like a premonition, I knew what he was about to say. I knew exactly what “actions” his mother had been talking about. Yet again, I found myself several mental steps ahead of Chip.

Now I had a decision to make.