Chương 11
“You came.”
“I said I would.”
He nodded.
“Do you want coffee?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“No.”
He looked down at the mug.
“Right.”
I stayed standing.
He noticed.
“You don’t have to sit.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched between us.
It was not the charged silence from the morning.
This one felt tired.
Caleb rubbed his thumb along the handle of the mug.
“Rebecca called you.”
“Yes.”
“She told me.”
“Of course she did.”
“She said she sent you messages.”
“She did.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“So you know.”
“I know what she sent.”
He looked up.
“That’s not necessarily everything.”
“Then this would be a good time to stop rationing the truth.”
His face tightened.
“I’m not trying to.”
“You’ve been trying to since April.”
He accepted that without answering.
I pulled out the chair across from him but did not sit.
“What did you need to tell me before Rebecca did?”
Caleb looked at the table.
I could see him arranging language.
That old habit had once seemed thoughtful.
Now it looked like engineering.
“After the kiss, I told her I was going to leave.”
The room became very still.
“Leave me.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“That night.”
“You told her that.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She told me not to.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She said if I left because of her, she was done.”
I sat down slowly.
Not because I wanted to be closer.
Because my legs had stopped cooperating.
Caleb continued.
“She said I was trying to turn one decision into another.”
“That sounds like her.”
His mouth twitched without humor.
“She said I needed to figure out whether I wanted our marriage even if she disappeared.”
I looked at him.
“And what did you decide?”
“I didn’t.”
The answer infuriated me more than if he had said no.
“You had months.”
“I know.”
“You hired a lawyer.”
“I know.”
“You moved money.”
“I know.”
“You asked another woman whether she would be waiting for you.”
“I know.”
“But somehow you still didn’t decide.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
I leaned back.
“That’s incredible.”
“It isn’t something I’m proud of.”
“Good.”
He flinched.
The reaction did not satisfy me this time.
I was too tired for satisfaction.
“What happened yesterday?”
He took a breath.
“I asked her whether she could see a future with me.”
“And?”
“She said not while I was married.”
“That is not an answer.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Of course you did.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“She said if I wanted to leave, I had to leave without knowing whether she’d be there.”
I watched him.
“And that scared you.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was so plain it almost disarmed me.
Almost.
“You wanted a guaranteed landing.”
He said nothing.
“You wanted to know you wouldn’t be alone.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
Small.
Ugly.
Human.
I hated it more because I understood it.
“What did you say after that?”
“I told her I didn’t think I could blow up Lucy’s life for uncertainty.”
I stared at him.
“Lucy’s life.”
“I know how that sounds.”
“No.”
My voice sharpened.
“I don’t think you do.”
He looked up.
“You were willing to blow up my life if Rebecca promised you something.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is exactly fair.”
“I wasn’t thinking like that.”
“That is the problem.”
He pushed the mug away.
“I was miserable.”
“And so was I.”
He stopped.
That silence was different.
“You never said that.”
I laughed once.
Neither of us enjoyed it.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I leaned forward.
“You think because I kept functioning, I was fine.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The words came faster now.
“I stopped asking you to come home for dinner because I got tired of being disappointed.”
His eyes dropped.
“I stopped planning things on Saturdays because half the time you answered email through them.”
“That wasn’t always.”
“No.”
I nodded.
“Not always.”
That mattered.
I refused to rewrite six years into a villain’s biography just because the present was ugly.
“You were there for Lucy’s surgery.”
“Of course I was.”
“You slept in that terrible hospital chair for two nights.”
He swallowed.
“You built her dollhouse at Christmas even though the instructions were apparently written by war criminals.”
A faint, broken smile touched his face.
I did not return it.
“You have been a good father in a lot of ways.”
He looked at me.
“And a terrible husband in others.”
The smile disappeared.
“I know.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You know now.”
That landed.
He folded his hands together.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Then stop trying to say the right thing.”
“I’m trying to explain.”
“I don’t need your explanation to be elegant.”
He looked toward the window.
Outside, someone’s lawn service had started a blower.
The mechanical whine filled the pause.
Finally, Caleb said, “I liked who I was with her.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean—”
He stopped himself.
His fingers pressed into the table.
“I felt interesting.”
The sentence was almost embarrassing.
That made it believable.
“Interesting.”
“Yes.”
He gave a small shrug that looked ashamed.
“With you, I felt like everything I did was already late.”
I stared at him.
“Because it usually was.”
“I know.”
“There was always something I hadn’t done.”
“Because there was.”
“I know.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then say what you mean.”
“I felt like I was failing here before I even walked through the door.”
The anger in me shifted.
Not vanished.
Shifted.
“And instead of doing more, you found somewhere you couldn’t fail.”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
The lawn blower shut off.
The sudden quiet was almost intimate.
I hated that too.
“When did you stop wanting to fix us?”
Caleb’s eyes filled, but the tears did not fall.
“I don’t know.”
“There has to be a point.”
“I don’t think there was.”
“So what was there?”
May you like
“Little things.”
He swallowed.
