Made With Love

Chapter 19

I turn the key to my apartment and step inside, arms weighted down with bags and enough cheese to stock a Jewish deli for a month. Everything is just as it was, but the place feels off, like I’m seeing it for the first time. I drop the bags to the floor and pace from room to room, not sure what to do with myself. I check my phone again: no messages.

Michael has my number. If he had gotten hung up somewhere, he’d have called. Or texted. Right?

I plop onto the couch. Why do I feel so incredibly shitty? I’ve got a life to get back on track! I shouldn’t be moping over Michael. The pack of Nat Sherman’s is right where I’d left it, smack in the middle of the coffee table.

Hellloo!

I slide out a cigarette, tip a match to it, and lean back noir style, my hand upturned coquettishly. I take a deep drag. Hmmm. That’s not nearly as nice as I remember. I take a long look around the apartment. My God, this place is small. My eyes skim over the sterile Ikea furniture, all of it in shades of black and white. Small and a bit dreary. I ask myself how could I live here. With Brad! I take another puff on the cigarette. Still manky. I jab it out on the edge of a plate.

What am I doing?! I should be over the moon to be home, and Stuart’s dynamite offer. I have to accept! It’s my dream job, but I can’t seem to pry myself off the sofa.

Bridie’s voice echoes in the back of my mind. ‘Love makes its own home.’

I shoot up again and head out the door and downtown.

Oak Ridge Assisted Living. This is the place.

I knock at the door and am met by a burly armed nurse.

‘May I help you?’ she asks. A spindly woman peers over her shoulder.

‘Mrs. Foster!’ I gush.

My God she’s gotten old.

She stares out at me as if I might be a vision.

‘It’s me, Julie! Kate’s friend.’

‘Kate?’ she whimpers.

The nurse steers her back inside. ‘Sorry about that, miss. It’s bad days and worse days with that one. Who was it you were looking for?’

‘Kate Foster.’

‘Oh yes. She’s here today. Down the hall to the right.’

I click down the corridor and peek into a common room where Kate is mid charade, a group of older men and women gathered, whooping, around her.

‘One word!’ the woman nearest me yells.

‘Movie!’ a second adds.

Kate nods emphatically and claps her mouth open and shut, eyes gleaming terribly.

‘Dracula!’

Kate swims wildly across the room, biting as she goes.

‘Baywatch!’ an old man yowls.

‘Dear, will you help us?’ one of the women asks me, and Kate turns to see me.

‘Julie?!’ She squints at me in disbelief.

‘Hey, no talking,’ a man spits.

‘Two minutes, Mr. Finch.’

She stalks over and yanks me into the hall. ‘When did you get back?’

‘Just now,’ I say.

‘Like just now?’

I nod. ‘I came to say I’m sorry. I’ve been a terrible friend, and an even worse partner!’