A Five-Minute Life

“I thought we had New York-ing to do.”

She cocked her head and lifted the edge of the towel. Offering.

I tore it off her. “Later, it is.”

Thea called Delia while I showered. I changed into the other pair of jeans I’d brought and was pulling a fresh white T-shirt over my head when Thea rolled her eyes and ended the call.

“She wanted to know which hotel we’re staying in. As if. I should have taken a photo of us in bed together just to piss her off.”

“Keep checking in with her. Let her know you’re okay. It’s all she wants.”

Thea gave me a dry look. “She wants your head on a platter, James,” she said. “As if I have zero ability to think for myself.”

She tossed the phone into her backpack with a disgusted snort, then hopped to her feet, her blue eyes alit from within. She wore her jean shorts and a maroon tank top with a drawing of a turtle on the front in white. She’d tied her hair up into a high ponytail that showed off the curve of her neck and small ears pierced with tiny silver hoops.

“First on my list,” she said. “The Met.”

“The Mets?” I asked, hiding my smile while pulling on a boot. “You want to watch baseball?”

“You’re so cute. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I checked on my phone while you were in the shower, and they have a ton of amazing exhibitions right now. One is a collection of paintings by the classic Dutch masters, and the Drawing and Prints Department is showing a bunch of stuff from my boy, Leo DaVinci. Not to mention they have one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities eh-vah.”

“Sounds good.”

“You sure? You won’t be totally bored? I remember you said art wasn’t your thing.”

“But it’s your thing,” I said. “This is your trip.”

“It’s our trip. I only have a few must-sees on my list. Anything else you want to do is gravy.”

“I’m good with whatever, Thea.”

She pursed her lips at me. “Okay, well, I was thinking we should probably check out of here. The Met is up in Central Park. I found this cute hotel nearby that looks perfect, and the parking isn’t going to wipe us out. Check-in at the new place isn’t until four. I figure we can get out of here, drive up to the park, and grab some breakfast before the museum. Sound good?”

“Great.”

We checked out and drove a slow crawl from the Times Square area, up the West Side of Manhattan, parked the truck at a public garage, then walked to a café for breakfast. Thea chatted animatedly the entire time, telling me about her life before the accident.

“I was a year away from graduating from the VCU School of Art in Richmond,” she said over eggs, bacon, and coffee. “I was hoping I was good enough for a scholarship for the Academy of Art here for my grad studies. Then a truck smashed my parents’ car and smashed all my plans too.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But so what? I’d never paint again if it brought them back.”

I reached across the small table and held her hand as she sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “But I’m going to start over again. Go back to school. I think that’s what they’d want me to do.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“What about you? Have you thought at all about going back to school for speech therapy?”

I shrugged. “Not much.”

“If it’s something you really want to do, you should do it. I think you’d be amazing at it.”

She dropped the subject, but I turned it around and around in my head. Being with Thea was a doorway to a real life opening and possibilities pouring through. A future vision unfurled in my mind: Thea in a studio painting, a ring glinting on her left hand, and me sitting with a little boy who couldn’t talk, and I was telling him things were going to be okay. Because they’d turned out okay for me. More than okay.

You’re going to tell him he can have everything he’s ever wanted? Doris sneered. Bullshit and lies. Life doesn’t work that way and you know it.

I tried to ignore the insidious thoughts, but they were ingrained in me. Part of the fiber of my being, woven by years of abuse and neglect in a fucked-up system.

I looked at Thea across from me, radiant and beautiful and full of love. Love was a stranger. Fear had been my constant companion.

Take care of her. Give her this trip. That’s your job. Your only job.