Choke on your piece-of-shit column and die.
Robin closed her eyes.Speaking of haters.
And then she put her head down and started to cry, tears spilling down her face, shoulders heaving. She cried as though she were alone in the room, alone in the world, her sobs rivaling those of the toddler. She was beyond caring or thinking about anything, not the teenagers whispering in the row of chairs across the room, not that bright-faced young nurse standing over her, asking, “Areyou all right, Ms. Diamond?” She cried until she felt arms around her, warm and familiar—an answer to a prayer she’d never been aware of.
The arms of her husband. His voice in her ear. “Oh my God, Robin. Oh my God.”
You’re here, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t speak.
Eric held her until her sobs subsided, all the tears drained out of her, her head on his shoulder.
“How did you find out?” she said, finally.
“Mr. Dougherty told me.”
“Oh.”
“They’ll be fine. Your parents are strong and healthy. Your mom’s barely into her sixties. And your dad. Come on, he’s a bull. He can still beat me at arm wrestling.”
“I hope so.”
“I swear, honey, they’ll be okay. And the police will get whoever did this to them.”
Robin said nothing. She wanted to believe Eric. Just like she wanted to believe that all her suspicions about him were unfounded, that he really was just working late over the past couple of months, that he might have been taking his job too seriously but not as seriously as her, as their love, their future, the things they cared about.
“You should have called me, Robin,” he said. “I’d have been here sooner.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I got home and you weren’t there and I thought...” His voice trailed off.
“What?”
“I thought you’d left me.” She turned and looked at him, the beard scruff, dark circles under the bright blue eyes, the concern in them... She inhaled his cologne, but she didn’t ask herself why he’dput on cologne to meet a source. She asked nothing, felt nothing, other than a yearning to know him again. “I would never leave you,” she said. And in that moment, she meant it.
“ROBIN.”
Eric’s voice. Robin had been having a dream, a bad one. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and took in the waiting room, most every seat empty now, save for one of the college student’s friends—a big bearded redhead, stretched out and snoring on a row of seats across the room.
Eric said, “You were whimpering. Were you having a bad dream?”
“I don’t remember.” Shards of it stuck in her mind: A rental car backfiring. Her mother screaming. That cop’s voice:How about your mother. Has she mentioned enemies?
Her own:We’re not going to make it into a listicle or a meme?
Robin said, “It might be my fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The break-in. My parents...”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Listen to me. I wrote a column yesterday. Did you read it?”
“I didn’t have a chance.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Robin said. “It got a ton of hate. More than usual. I had to turn all my notifications off, and even then, I... I got a text.” She dug her phone out of her pocket, handed it to him. “Look at the latest text, Eric.”