Marisol let out a long, low whistle. "Mija, I've been married twice. You want my advice or you want me to just sit here and agree with you?"
"I don't know."
"Then I'll give you both. First, I agree with you. He's a pendejo. I don't care how sad she was. You don't hand your wife's work schedule to your ex-fiancée like a bus timetable." She leaned forward. "Second. You don't decide anything in this supply closet. You don't decide anything in that house before Christmas. You don't decide anything while you still smell her perfume on your little girl. You hear me? You wait until your hands stop shaking."
Renée looked down at her hands. They were shaking.
"And third," Marisol said, more gently. "Whatever you decide, you're going to be fine. You know how I know? Because I've watched you handle a cord prolapse at four in the morning with a resident who was crying. You're going to be fine. It's going to hurt like hell. But you're going to be fine."
* * *
She called her sister that night from the car, in the parking garage at Saint Brigid's, with the engine running for heat. Tasha was two years older and lived in Bronzeville with her husband, Andre, and their twin boys, and she picked up on the first ring the way she always did, as if she'd been sitting by the phone waiting for exactly this.
"What's wrong," Tasha said. Not hello. Not how are you. What's wrong.
Renée told her.
There was a long silence on the line. Then Tasha said, "I'm going to drive out there."
"No. Tash. Don't."