“You don’t need this shirt anymore.”

“But…it’s our memories.” She looks down at the tattered piece of cloth and I kick it to the side, out of sight. I never thought I’d be grateful to a damn shirt but I am. I’m grateful to this shirt for staying by her side when she needed me but chose to keep me at a distance. However, she doesn’t need an old shirt of mine to bring her comfort on her bad days anymore. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.

“We’ll make new ones. You can have all the shirts I own for all I care.”

And then we make a new memory right there in the kitchen.

“You know what I was thinking?” Olivia calls to me over the running water. She’s showering while I’m trimming my beard at the sink. I could be doing this in the other bathroom, and I probably should considering she likes to shower with the water set to the pits of hell, but I’d rather be where she is.

It’s been four days since we started on this new path. We’re strictly client and therapist when we’re in my office, but the moment we walk through the door of this house we’re all limbs and lips, exploring each other with fervor. We’re worse than we were at sixteen when we took each other’s virginities and learned the controlling sensation of lust. We’re worse than we were at eighteen when a college campus gave us the freedom to have sex whenever we wanted. No, this need now? It’s unrelenting. It’s carnal. It’s thirteen years of pent-up desire that refuses to go back beneath the surface. It’s here to stay.

“What’s that?”

“I thought we could get the stuff to make dumplings and go see Po Po.”

Those words are enough to suck the air out of the room.

“No.” It’s all I can say. What else is there? I would rather stab my eye out with a rusty nail than go see my grandmother right now because seeing her will do nothing but bring me pain and I don’t want you to see that? No, I can’t say that.

“Really? But we have a free day and she’s…”

I cut her off because I can’t listen to her defend Po Po. “I said no.”

She pokes her head around the shower curtain. “What happened between you two?”

Anger boils just beneath the surface of my skin, festering like poison. Anger at Po Po for shattering the illusion I had of a grandmom I could trust. Anger at myself for not dismissing her from my life. Anger at Olivia for expecting me to share when she still hasn’t.