Face Of The Monster

***14***

Phoebe Kim is unhappy and she knows it.

She can't stop thinking about the ring, stowed away in her dresser drawer like a secret diary. It hides beneath her underwear, growling at her when she gets dressed in the morning. She doesn't like seeing it there, but she can't bring herself to return it. Chloe has, she supposed, forgotten all about her proposal. It's never going to happen. Why does she continue to house this poisonous reminder? Perhaps she doesn't want to let go of the possibility.

Phoebe Kim is unhappy, but at the moment, she is just fine. She and Emma are sitting in a booth at the coffee shop down the road from Phoebe's office, waiting for their coffee and danishes. It's early, earlier than Phoebe usually subjects herself to other people. She checks her phone. Only eight thirty. She doesn't have to be back at the office until about nine thirty.

She has just finished telling Emma about her encounter with Mr. Collier the other day. Emma had laughed maliciously as she described the pathetic misfortune that was his life and cackled even harder when she told her about the hope in his eyes as he placed his hand on her waist, begging her to be a part of his life.

"Does that happen to you a lot?" Emma asked when she'd finally broken out of her laughing fit. Her eyes were glazed with tears, her cheeks still tinged pink with giggles.

"What, men hitting on me?"

"Yeah."

Phoebe shrugs. She remembers what Lars said, about them getting a little confused. "Most of my clients are lost people," she shrugs. "And yeah, some of them cling to me a little too much. But they usually snap out of it when I say no."

Emma looks away. "Am I clinging?" she asks.

"Emma, of course not. You're not my client. You're my friend."

The barista calls out Phoebe's name. She pats Emma on the cheek before going to get their coffee.

When she comes back, Emma has adopted a pensive expression. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Course you can." Phoebe sets down Emma's coffee in front of her and slides back into the booth. She digs the danishes out of the bag. "Blueberry or raspberry?" she asks, laying both options out on the table.

"I don't care," Emma says. Phoebe gives her the blueberry.

"What was your question?"

Emma takes the lid off her coffee cup and stirs placidly. "Have you ever thought about having children?"

The question hits Phoebe like a bullet to the stomach. She feels her face blush with surprise, her hands breaking into cold sweat. She wonders if this is how Emma feels when people touch her, just confronted and hurt and violated. It shows on her face and she knows it does.

"You don't have to answer," Emma says quickly. "Really, it was just something I was wondering about. Not important."

But of course it's important. Phoebe forces herself to get back under control, at least externally. She arranges her face into an indifferent expression and blinks away her tears. She's fine. It's just a question.

Emma takes a sip of her coffee, eyebrows knit together. "You look upset," she says.

"I'm not," Phoebe says. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to look angry."

"You didn't look angry." Emma touches Phoebe's hand across the table, stroking her palm. "You looked like you were going to cry."

Phoebe looks away.

"What's the matter, Phoebe?" Emma says. "You can tell me."

She shakes her head. She could tell Emma, but Emma would never understand. A young woman with two children, possibly another on the way, could never appreciate the cold, hard realization of bareness, the shrill ringing of a malignant internal clock that says time is up. "I don't want to talk about it," she says.

"Okay." But now, Emma is scrutinizing her, searching her face for clues. "I'm sorry I asked."

"Don't be." Phoebe wonders if she has changed something between them, now, having established a boundary that had been, thus far, invisible. There hadn't been boundaries in their relationship before now. there had been nothing they couldn't talk about, nothing they couldn't do. And she wants it to stay that way. Taking a deep breath, Phoebe says, "You're right. I can tell you."

Emma looks up, her eyes wide and innocent as a doe's. "You don't have to."

"I want to," Phoebe lies. She sighs deeply. "To be honest, I have thought about have children. Many times. It just wasn't in my cards, I guess."

"It's not too late," Emma says. "You could still, right?"

Phoebe lets out a bitter chuckle. "Do you know how old I am, Emma?"

Emma shrugs. "Late thirties?"

"Nope." Phoebe takes a bite of her danish, wondering if she should have gotten a cinnamon roll instead. "Forty seven."

Emma's eyebrows go up. "Wow. You look so young."

"Eh, forty seven's not so old." She remembers turning forty five. She remembers realizing that her last period had already happened, that there would never be another one. She recalls the mingling of relief and heavy depression, remembers staying in bed for the better part of a week, holding Chloe during the night and crying mercilessly during the day when she was at work. That week, she felt extraordinarily old.

Squeezing her hand, Emma says, "If it helps, I think you would have been an excellent mother."

It doesn't help. Phoebe squeezes her hand back. "I like to think I would have been."