Read Fix You for Free Online Page A

and met her attorney’s gaze. “I just want out.”
     
    Next Tuesday Night
     
                  The rain was coming down in great sweeping curtains that shifted and danced across the lawn. The night sky shimmered with water and crackled with lightning over Jo’s head. Jess propped a shoulder in the threshold of her front door and took stock of her little sister on the stoop; she had a bottle of white wine in one hand and a Kroger bag that clung to the frost rimming two pints of Haagen-Dasz in the other.
                  “I don’t have a grown up relationship, but I’ve got alcohol and ice cream.”
                  Jess pushed back the door and invited her in wordlessly, not trusting herself to say the right thing. Jo came in shaking raindrops out of her hair, rubber clogs making squeaking sounds against the hardwood before she shucked them and left them by the umbrella stand. Jess watched the wet, black, slick street a long moment, watched the rain pour over everything and glaze the neighborhood, fast tongues of lightning licking out of the clouds; listened to Jo’s small, bare feet as she went into the kitchen and set her peace offerings on the counter.
                  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Jo was the blind kid running off emotions; Jess was the thoughtful, careful pragmatist who’d married for so much more than the high of stolen tongue ring kisses and the smell of a leather jacket. Jo was the dreamer who thought love compensated for everything; Jess was the realist who searched for love that didn’t need compensating in the first place. In what universe were Jo and Tam the shining beacons of what commitment looked like?
                  With a deep, fortifying breath, Jess locked them in and went to join her sister.
                  It was almost ten and Tyler was tucked into bed, the house shut down for the night, only the chandelier above the table providing any light in the room. The dining room and formal living room were deep pools of shadow, the living room lit by the glow of the security light coming in through the French doors that led onto the deck. It had been a depressing place five minutes before, but Jo had pulled glasses down and was getting out spoons for the ice cream. She’d turned on the little TV under the microwave to HGTV, the volume low, the soothing comfort of a home renovation show throwing light across the countertop.
                  “Where’s your corkscrew?”
                  “Drawer on your left.”
                  The Pinot Grigio came open with a deep, echoing pop and Jo poured more than either of them needed into the Waterford glasses. “Bring the ice cream,” she said as she went to the table. “I brought mint chocolate chip and chocolate with chocolate chips.”
                  Mint was Jo’s favorite, so Jess set it and a spoon in front of her, pried the lid off the double chocolate for herself. The last thing she needed was a whole pint of dairy to make her not only divorced, but flabby, but she dug her spoon in anyway and took a bite.
                  “If I ask you how you’re holding up,” Jo started, spooning up her own bite of ice cream, “am I gonna get my head bitten off?”
                  “No.”
                  “It’s a stupid question, though, isn’t it?”
                  “Yeah.”
                  Jo drew a pattern across the top of her ice cream with the tip of her spoon, her expression almost guilty. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that the other day and, well, I should have.” Her blue-green eyes had gone puppy dog big when she lifted them. “I’m so sorry, Jess.”
                  “Yeah, well,” Jess reached for her wine. “If one half of all marriages end in divorce, statistically, at least one of us was going to head for