Learning to Stay (31 page)

I am sad and I am angry. I can feel tears smarting at the edges of my own eyes now. What, I want to ask, is so bad about wanting more out of life? About not wanting it to be hard? About trying to be happy? Does that really make me an awful person? Isn’t that really, deep down, what everyone wants? And if I have a chance to try, why shouldn’t I? But I don’t let these questions past my lips because I don’t trust myself with words right now.

I stand up and bring my wineglass to the kitchen. I pour the remainder of its contents down the drain, rinse it, and set the glass next to the sink because I know that Darcy never puts her glassware in the
dishwasher. I wonder if I will ever perform this simple action here in her kitchen again. It’s remarkable how charged with sentiment the simplest acts become when they might be the last.

Darcy is still sitting, still sipping her wine, when I walk back into the living room. It’s as though I merely excused myself to use the restroom. As though nothing has happened. As though we didn’t exchange the words we just said.

“I was hoping you would be happy for me,” I say. “Or that you’d at least try to understand.”

Darcy doesn’t look at me.

“I’m going to miss you, Darcy,” I say. “I’m sorry things are hard for you. They’re hard for me, too. I hope you’ll forgive me eventually for whatever it is you think I’ve done.”

I hope that at this moment, Darcy will get up and wish me well, or at least hug me. But she remains seated, sipping. She looks past me as if I were not even there.

“Maybe someday, then,” I say. I stop at the front door to trace a finger down Collin’s packing list for Iraq, still taped to the frame. “Bye, Darce,” I say, hoping she won’t let me leave. Not like this. She doesn’t look up.

I pull the door shut behind me until I hear it click.

The rest of the night I toss and turn, unable to will the sleep that usually comes so readily, and the next morning, I wake before the sun. I consider doing something that signals that I’m leaving this place, of performing some ritual of good-bye. I could stop in to see Zach on my way out, or pick up scones from Lazy Jane’s one last time. But I’m afraid of inertia taking over, of noon or four o’clock arriving to find me here, still trying to leave. So, when the early-morning sky is still thin with light, I point my car away from the center of town and steal glances at the Capitol, standing tall on Madison’s isthmus and growing
smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. I think about what Darcy said, and our conversation seeps through any space in my thoughts. The car’s tires find the highway with little conscious help from their driver. The wheel under my hands and the rumble of my old car feel like an extension of me. I am not thinking about setting the cruise control, or steering, or the traffic I am traveling in. Feeling like this, I could keep driving and driving until I run out of road. Until I end up where I’m supposed to be.

And, maybe, that’s precisely what I do.

It’s late afternoon, and the place is empty when I arrive. I stand in the middle of the kitchen and try to take in what I’m doing here, how I ended up here. But as usual, I haven’t eaten yet today, and my questions are too big and tangled for me to try to sort through them on an empty stomach. So I scour the cupboards and find a handful of crackers, and in the refrigerator I unearth the remnants of a block of cheese from beneath something wrapped in tinfoil. Then I find a mug, fill it halfway with milk, and zap it for a minute in the microwave. Just warm enough. It goes down in three, maybe four gulps, soothing the premonitions of heartburn rumbling in my throat.

I sit down at the kitchen table and think first of nothing but eating. I cut a piece of cheese and match it to a cracker—then another, and then another, until the crackers are gone.

I hope that this snack will fuel my synapses, that it will prod them to start firing again. But all it does is make me sleepy. What with the stress of the past week, the tossing and turning I did last night, and getting up at first light to pack the car, I’ve probably strung together only a few hours of actual sleep. Sitting here at the table, not only can I not seem to think things through; I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.

I put away what remains of the cheese and rinse my mug in the sink. Then I drag myself upstairs and down the hall to the last door on the left.

It’s exactly as I left it.

The bed is made with my signature, the corners folded to the long sides and the foot of the comforter tucked under (I like my feet to be cozy, to have boundaries, whereas Brad likes his to kick free). This means that no one has slept in this bed for more than a month.

A stab of guilt sinks in. I left my husband up here to withdraw from society, from life, from me. I left him here to sleep in a barn—which is where I assume he is tonight—with no one to watch out for him, to advocate for him. I gave up on him when I should have kept him in Madison, with me.

And where would he be then?
a voice inside my head asks. It’s a rhetorical question, because the answer is clear. He’d be sleeping on the floor of our bedroom, both of us struggling to get through each day, my rope of sanity becoming increasingly slippery until I could no longer hang on for both of us. Until I couldn’t hang on even for myself.

It’s better like this, I tell myself. If not now, then it will be eventually. Because what do you do in a situation like the one we’ve found ourselves in?

I can tell you what you do: You walk away.

I think about how it will work: the disbanding of our marriage, of our life together. Sure, I’ve thought about leaving Brad before, but it was a theoretical exercise—an idea I tried on for size much the way I tried being with Zach on for size, all of it done in the soft corners of my brain, where I could think certain things and be content in the knowledge that they were only thoughts. I knew all along that I could contemplate leaving Brad and move toward it, in the tiniest ways without making any sort of actual, permanent leap.

And now? Now I am here to tell him that I’ve rented our house, that his things are in the back of my car, and that I’m headed to California for an indefinite time. Now I’m starting to seriously wonder which attorney to retain or if I’ll need one, how we’ll divvy up our meager assets, what it will feel like to sign my name to a divorce decree and walk out into the morning or afternoon air when I do. I am considering the fact that this time, there is no safety net. I have no job, no idea what I’m going to do for work, and no best friend to turn to. I have no idea how I could possibly live an entire lifetime with Brad as he is, and no idea how I might ever meet someone who could fill the void that leaving him would create. I have no family to spend holidays with. Brad has always been my family, but once I pay an attorney a few thousand dollars and sign on a dotted line, he will cease to be even that.

In the dark, I lie down on the bed. It’s too much thinking. There are too many questions. My brain can’t process them all. Not right now. I close my eyes against them. I try to get them to stop their barrage. And when sleep comes, swiftly and unexpectedly, they do.

By the grace of some higher power, I sleep until morning. It’s the first solid night’s sleep I’ve had in as long as I can remember—probably since before law school. If that sounds like hyperbole, I have some prescription sleeping pills in my possession and two bags, as black and heavy as steamer luggage, that have taken up permanent residence under my eyes, to say it’s not.

Mert is standing at the kitchen sink, looking out a half-raised window. I pour myself the dregs of that morning’s coffee and move to stand next to him.

“Didn’t know you’d be here, Princess,” he says, not looking at me.

“Neither did I.”

I follow Mert’s gaze and finally see what he’s watching so intently.

Brad is standing in the middle of the yard. He has on flip-flops, a gray T-shirt, and worn jeans with a black fleece tied around his waist. His lips are curled into a contented smile and his face is relaxed. He looks like he did on that January morning five years ago, the morning after I first met him. It’s a look I love, and the way I picture him in my mind when he’s not right there—casual, rugged, self-assured. He is less angular than he was back then, or even a few months ago. And the weight he’s put on makes him look softer, happier. There are essential experiences tied to that new softness. There were bridges crossed and baggage hauled and journeys made.

When I was in my early twenties, naïve and not as smart as I thought I was, I would look at couples dragging along a gaggle of kids or making their morning commutes to work, men and women who needed to see their hairdresser or a treadmill or the inside of an apparel store’s dressing room more often, and I’d feel profoundly sad for them, even superior to them. I thought they had given up on being a better version of themselves. I thought that their free time and money and energy had been siphoned off by all the pressures of adulthood. I swore I’d never, ever do that. I swore I’d resist life when it tried to wear me down. I’d be vigilant against those changes.

Looking at Brad right now, though, I know better. If I were to see one of those couples now, I’d admire, not pity, them. Brad doesn’t look exactly as he used to, but neither do I. We’re tethered to all that’s happened to each of us, every day of our lives, by a million tiny threads. It’s something to wear the passage of time so bravely. There’s a quiet beauty in it.

Brad bends over and touches the nose of the dog, Jones, who is sitting attentively in front of him. She looks fit and fatter and healthy. It’s hard to reconcile the dog in the yard with the one Brad carried home a handful of weeks ago.

Brad backs up from her a few steps and straightens. He moves
around her in a circle, counterclockwise, eventually coming back to his original position. The entire time, that dog doesn’t take her eyes off him.

“He does this every day. For hours,” Mert says, his gaze focused on man and canine. “It’s the damnedest thing.”

I’m not sure if Mert means the weird staring contest Brad and this dog are having or that he spends hours working with the dog in general. Brad gives the dog an almost imperceptible nod of his chin and says, “Okay,” and Jones breaks her position, spins around twice, and leaps into Brad’s waiting arms.

Maybe things have changed,
a voice inside me says.
Maybe he’s getting better.
But I shake my head, waving it off. I can’t afford to keep hoping. Brad needs help and I can’t force him to get it. And if that doesn’t change, nothing else is going to. Not for long, anyway. Not for good.

I glance sideways at Mert; he’s still looking out the window. Brad is walking in a figure eight now, with Jones at his side, the dog following each step Brad takes. The look in her eyes and the carriage of her body convey more than obedience. They communicate total, unconditional devotion. I’m taken aback at Mert’s comment, but I try not to show it.

“I know what you think of me,” Mert says.

“Right back at ya, Mert,” I say.

“I’m not a bad guy, Princess.”

“I never said you were, Mert,” I say. “I don’t think that.”

“You think I’m too hard on Brad,” he says. “I see the way you look at me.”

I shrug. It would be tough to argue with Mert. Then again, it’s not really any of my business. “Mert, you don’t really have to—”

Mert holds up a hand to stop me. He’s still watching Brad. Mert has a softer, wistful look on his face. I see hints of who he must have
been long ago—when he was newly married, when his children were babies, when he had his whole life to live.

When he was happy.

“I like that about you, Princess. I always have. You’re as loyal to my son as that dog out there.”

I suck in a breath. Comparisons like this one feel like the twist of an invisible, serrated knife, especially when, in this case, the dog has me beat fair and square when it comes to winning Brad’s affection.

I think about how I spent the last week. I think of Brad’s things and my things, packed in separate boxes in the back of my car. I think of how, if not for the heap of guilt Darcy laid on me the other night, I might not be here in person to tell Brad about my decision. As it is, I’m springing it on him with no notice. Those are not the actions of a loyal person. And to think that Mert, of all people, is now going to give me credit for doing the exact opposite of what he thinks I’ve done. It all makes me feel a little queasy, though coffee on an empty stomach isn’t helping matters much.

“Thing is,” Mert continues, “Ricky was such a mess. Ran with a tough, fast crowd, that one. Oh sure, he’s done fine for himself now, but it could’ve easily gone another way.” Mert is still staring out the window, almost as if talking to himself; yet I get the distinct impression that he’s acutely aware of my presence and the level of attention I’m giving him. “But Brad’s smart. I didn’t want him hanging around here feeling tied to this place because of what happened with his mom—thinking I needed taking care of. I wanted him to go out and do big things. And if that meant hating his old man, then so be it. He always could do just about anything he set his mind to.” Mert turns and looks directly at me, raising an eyebrow. “Still can, you know.”