Chương 5
“So does half of Franklin County.”
“Megan.”
Her sister turned from the window.
“Do not make yourself disappear to make him easier.”
Emily froze.
The oven timer beeped.
Neither moved.
It beeped again.
Megan finally crossed the kitchen and shut it off.
“Pizza’s probably burning.”
“You should take it out.”
“You’re closer.”
Emily stared at her.
Megan pointed toward the oven.
“See, this is why I’m unmarried.”
A laugh escaped Emily before she could stop it.
For ten seconds they stood in the kitchen laughing at nothing while fear remained exactly where it was.
Then headlights swept across the living room wall.
The laughter stopped.
Megan moved to the window.
A dark pickup turned into the lot.
“Is that him?”
Emily’s chest tightened.
“Yes.”
Ryan parked crookedly across two spaces.
He got out without shutting off the engine.
Even from the third floor, Emily recognized the way he walked when angry, shoulders rigid, one hand opening and closing at his side.
Megan reached for her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Recording if he gets stupid.”
“Don’t open the door.”
“I wasn’t planning to offer him coffee.”
Ryan disappeared beneath the building entrance.
Twenty seconds later, someone pulled hard on the downstairs door.
The building had a locked lobby.
Emily had forgotten.
Relief came so fast it made her knees weak.
Then the buzzer beside Megan’s door sounded.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Megan ignored it.
Emily’s phone rang.
Ryan.
She watched his name fill the screen.
The buzzer sounded again.
“Don’t answer,” Megan said.
Emily let the call end.
A message appeared immediately.
I know you’re in there.
Another followed.
Open the door.
Then:
We need to talk like adults.
Megan read over her shoulder.
“The famous phrase of men behaving like toddlers.”
Emily did not answer.
Ryan called again.
This time she picked up.
“Go home.”
His voice came through tight and breathless.
“Come downstairs.”
“No.”
“Emily, I am not doing this through a phone.”
“You’re going to have to.”
“What the hell happened?”
“You know what happened.”
“No, I don’t.”
The answer was so immediate that for one second she doubted herself.
Then she saw the gray rag on the kitchen floor again.
“You threw a dish rag in my face.”
“Oh my God.”
Ryan laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“This is about that?”
Emily gripped the phone.
“Yes.”
“That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“So you packed your whole life because a joke wasn’t funny?”
“No.”
He stopped.
Emily could hear the rumble of his truck through the window and the faint hiss of traffic on the road.
“No what?”
“I packed because I finally understood the joke.”
Ryan said nothing.
Megan looked at Emily sharply.
Emily had not planned the sentence.
She barely understood it herself until it was spoken.
Ryan lowered his voice.
“Come downstairs.”
“No.”
“Please.”
That word was new.
It weakened her more than the anger had.
She hated that.
“I’m not coming down.”
“We got married yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“You stood in front of everybody and made promises.”
“So did you.”
“I didn’t leave.”
“No.”
Emily pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“You just made it very clear what staying meant.”
He exhaled hard.
“My mother was trying to include you.”
“By assigning me bathrooms?”
“She asked you to help.”
“She ordered me to clean them.”
“You are twisting everything because you’re pissed off.”
“I’m not twisting anything.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
Emily opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
That was the problem.
She had known exactly what she wanted while packing.
Distance.
Silence.
A locked door.
Now Ryan was asking about tomorrow, and tomorrow was full of bank accounts, wedding gifts, relatives, insurance paperwork, furniture, photographs, and a marriage license filed three days earlier.
“I want you to leave,” she said.
“For tonight?”
“I want you to leave the parking lot.”
“Emily.”
“If you stay, Megan is calling the police.”
Megan raised her eyebrows but nodded.
Ryan became very quiet.
“You’re threatening me with cops now?”
“No.”
“You literally just said—”
“I’m telling you what happens if you refuse to leave private property after being asked.”
“You’ve been talking to somebody.”
The accusation arrived almost casually.
Emily frowned.
“What?”
“This doesn’t sound like you.”
She felt something inside her settle.
Not anger this time.
Recognition.
Ryan continued.
“Is Megan putting this in your head?”
Megan heard her name and mouthed, Of course.
Emily walked to the window.
Ryan stood below near the lobby door, looking up at the building.
His free hand was in his hair.
For the first time she could see something besides anger in his posture.
He looked frightened.
The sight hurt.
She had loved him.
That fact did not disappear just because another fact had become unbearable.
“No one put anything in my head,” she said.
“I’m asking you to go home.”
Ryan looked toward the street.
Then he said, “Mom’s crying.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry she’s upset.”
“She thinks you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her.”
“Then fix this.”
There it was again.
A task placed into her hands.
Emily opened her eyes.
“No.”
Ryan stopped breathing loudly into the phone.
“What?”
“I’m not fixing tonight for everybody.”
“Emily, Jesus.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Don’t.”
His voice cracked slightly.
She hesitated.
That tiny fracture pulled a year of tenderness behind it.
Ryan bringing soup when she had the flu.
Ryan dancing badly in her kitchen because an old Prince song came on.
Ryan sitting beside her father in the emergency room after Thomas cut his hand on a table saw, saying almost nothing for three hours because he somehow understood that was what her father needed.
People were not one thing.
That had made excuses possible.
It also made leaving hurt.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s what I have.”
She ended the call.
May you like
Through the window, Ryan remained in the parking lot for another minute.
Then he kicked the front tire of his truck.
