"That's so strange; I just can't fit the Cecily I know with the one you're describing. I've always seen you as this kick-ass, confident, individual person," Nate said.
"I think my divorce helped me become that..." Cecily paused, letting the implication sink in.
Nate nodded, understanding what she was saying, though still skeptical that he would ever look back at the end of his relationship with anything other than heartbreak. He just couldn't reconcile the way he felt with any kind of growth; it felt like he was a forest that had been set ablaze, that his roots had been upended and there was no chance of re-birth. He wondered if he was maybe just unable to learn lessons. He hoped that he wouldn't grow old and bitter and further away from the person that he wanted to be. "But why did you leave?"
Cecily's face scrunched up. "I just got lonely. I looked around, and I realized that there was no part of me anywhere. The house—which was beautiful, don't get me wrong—didn't represent me in any way. It could have belonged to anyone. I was lonely and lying to people about how happy I was all of the time, and I begged Thomas to change. I begged him to try and work with me, to help me to change, to give me something more than he was giving me. And he couldn't. And I left. And he got me fired there and then. And it was the worst day of my life, but it was the best thing that I ever did."
The room went quiet again, the energy lulling as Nate absorbed the information. Nate opened his mouth to speak and closed it. He inhaled deeply. "What did you do then?"
"I moved back home. I think I probably had a nervous breakdown, but I didn't go to the doctor or anything. My parents thought I was pathetic because light hurt my eyes and almost all music gave me a headache. They couldn't understand how I could walk away from a life that was so much better than they could have ever dreamed for me. I felt like paper, like my body was absorbing everything. And then I read a little and swam a little and ate a little, and piece by piece I was stronger. I got a good job and then I adopted Tommy. And I guess I'm kind of happy. Not all the time, not every minute of every day, but every day I am happy at least once. And I always feel like a whole person. Shit, I'm rambling. I'm the queen of babble."
Nate put his hands to his face. "But I literally do not know if I can do that. I don't know how to be a person without him; I have never really had to be. I've never had to stand on my own two feet."
"Never?" Cecily asked. Her voice was lighter, seemingly relieved to be talking about Nate again.
"I was sixteen when I met him. And he was just perfect. God, he was so strong. He was just this gorgeous, hunky man with a job and a house and a life. I met him one night in a bar and ran away with him the next week. I hadn't graduated high school and he was already a successful businessman. But I just knew that I would never find someone better than him; he was my knight, so I just clung to him. I clung to him tight and I never looked back. And without him, I feel like my organs are falling out—like my skin is unraveling. And now I'm having to deal with the fact that he isn't that person. The idea that he's human, that he has all of the problems and issues that everyone else has, is just so painful to process. And it isn't even a little thing that he did to disappoint me. It's a full-on betrayal. Worst of all is that Bailey will one day know what happened, and I just don't want Bailey to feel betrayed by Joshua.
"The second my sister was diagnosed, I felt betrayed by my dad, and it's just a shitty way to live your life. It just makes me feel so sad that he's not the perfect person that I thought he was. It makes me so upset that that sixteen year old who was desperate for a happy ending didn't get it. How could everything have gone so wrong? I so thought that I had made good with him. And it makes me feel pathetic that I just want him back. I still think that deep down he's incredible."
Nate sunk into the sofa cushion as Cecily sat next to him. His breathing was labored, like he was in danger of forgetting to inhale and exhale if he didn't consciously remind himself to. He felt Cecily rest her head on his shoulder and he felt instantly stronger. Nate was still fighting his contradictory instincts; the reality of the situation was battling the image that he had of Joshua in his mind. He had spent ten years piling all of his admiration into a person that had walked away in the most cowardly way possible. Nate couldn't align the two sides of himself: the one that wanted to grip onto his perfect image of Joshua and the one that had to clean up the mess that Joshua had left behind. It felt so cruel to have to admit that Joshua wasn't what Nate had thought he was.
"Nate." Cecily swallowed hard, and Nate dreaded what would come next. "I've been biting my tongue for a really long time now... but I don't think you're seeing this the right way. You keep talking about how strong Joshua is, about how much you owe him, about how much he is responsible for the good things that have happened in your life. You're giving yourself no credit. But the truth is that he bailed on you and his son. He wasn't strong; he was a coward. He didn't make sure that you and Bailey were secure—he just ran away."
"But I don't think I gave him any other option. I think that I made it impossible for him to tell me what was going on because I had placed such huge expectations of him." Nate's voice barely grew above a whisper. He felt as if all of the energy had been sucked out of him, leaving him hollow.
"Okay, but I don't think that's true. Tomorrow you have to put everything you own into boxes. You'll have to say goodbye to the house that you love, and I think that's sad. You will be carrying around a lot of grief, and you don't need to be carrying around blame as well. Because it's not your fault." Cecily let Nate rest his head on her shoulder.
"Then why does it feel like it? Why do I feel like I let Joshua down? That I'm letting Bailey down?" Nate asked, voice shaking and childlike.
"Because you're a good guy, and you want to see the best in people, and you want the best for people. You're a protector."
"What am I going to tell Bailey?" Nate asked, staring at the ceiling. "I can't just keep saying that Joshua's working out of town. At some point, he's going to have to hear the truth. But I think it'll just kill him."
"You tell him that Joshua has gone away and that you don't know when he will see him again, but that he loves him a lot. You tell Bailey that he didn't do anything wrong and none of this is his fault, and you tell him that this might be an okay thing. Because it's a new start, a whole new chapter." Nate knew that Cecily was trying to make everything seem easier than it was in an attempt to be supportive. He also knew that Bailey would be devastated no matter what he said. He knew that the next couple of months were going to be harder than Cecily would ever admit.
Nate drained the last bit of Merlot from his glass and steeled himself. He brushed invisible lint off his sweater. "Okay, that's enough. That's my last breakdown. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep going over and over it in my mind, it's just making me sick and, you know, I don't know what will happen tomorrow. It's gonna be a big day and I have to be strong for Bay. He's gonna need some serious ninja support, and I can't give him that when I keep bursting into tears." Nate gave his words real weight so they adopted the rhythm of a battle cry. One of the most pathetic battle cries in history, but a battle cry nonetheless.
Cecily smiled. "I think you're an incredibly strong person. And when you're a naturally strong person, you have a responsibility to yourself to keep on being strong. You have to respect your strength, no matter what happens."
They both got up from the sofa and washed their glasses in the sink. Nate yawned deeply, feeling tiredness inside of his bones. He unfurled his long body into a stretch, loosening the tension and sadness that had restricted his body. "I love you, Cici. I don't know what I would've done without you here. I don't know where I would have gone." He paused and smiled as he began to ascend the stairs. "I just wanted you to know that."
Cecily blew him a kiss. "I love you too."
Nate locked the bathroom door behind him and pulled out his phone. Two messages, but neither from Joshua. He began to dial and waited for the click of Joshua's voicemail message. Nate turned the tap on to drown out his quiet words in case they travelled.
"Umm. Hey, Joshua, it's me again. By me, I mean Nate. I just wanted to let you know that we have to move all of our stuff out tomorrow—at ten a.m., it will no longer be our house. Officially, it won't belong to us anymore. So if you want me, or you want to see Bailey, then you'll have to call. Because I don't know where we'll be. I'm having a little bit of trouble finding a place for us and we can't stay at Cici's… there's no room. So I feel like I'm just gonna have to get in the car tomorrow and drive somewhere, anywhere. I just wanted you to know that. If you want some of your stuff, like your sleeping T-shirt—how are sleeping without your sleeping T-shirt? I remember when we had to drive back home from our vacation because you had forgotten it and you couldn't sleep all night!
"Anyway—if you give me a forwarding address, then I can send you the stuff. I won't turn up at your place like some crazy stalker. Otherwise I'm putting a lot of it in storage and taking some with me. Bailey's fine… He's asking about you a lot; he misses you. I miss you, but he really misses you." Nate felt a tear roll down his cheek and his voice cracked a little. He'd promised himself that he wasn't going to do this again, that he would sound strong and confident. He inhaled deeply and paced for a second, gaining the courage to speak again, to be the kind of leader that he knew Bailey needed him to be. "Anyway, get in touch and we'll figure something out. I hope you're doing all right."
Nate could feel anger rising up his body. He felt abandoned and hopeless and he wanted to lash out at something. He filled the sink basin with cold water and plunged his face into it. He wanted to embrace Joshua and punch him at the same time. He dried his face and then leaned against the basin, breathing for a few seconds to calm his nerves.
Nate unlocked the door and went into his bedroom. Bailey was awake, his bright eyes illuminated by the steady glow of traffic outside.
"Why are you still awake, silly? You should've been asleep hours ago. What have you been doing all of this time?" Nate asked in a whisper.
"I've been waiting for you! I thought it would be a surprise," Bailey said with a yawn, his little body expanding and contracting with the show of tiredness. It made Nate's heart crack open a little.
Nate put on his pajamas and got into the bed. He felt a little peace when Bailey put his head on his chest. Their breathing grew comfortable and rhythmic together.
"Bailey?" Nate asked, interrupting the perfect silence.
"Yes, Dad?" Bailey said, obviously tired and muffled slightly from sucking his thumb.
"Do you trust me?"
"What does that mean?" Bailey asked, nestling closer.
"Trust means… Do you think that I will always protect you, that I will always do things that will make you happy and safe?"
"Yep, I do. Now go to sleep," Bailey said, a hint of irritation in his tiny voice. Instead of authoritative, it just came across as cute, and Nate smiled towards the ceiling.
"Why do you trust me?" Nate said.
"Because you are very smart and you always do everything well and your heart beats really hard all of the time."
"What do you mean?"
"Your heart is very strong. It beats really well—Papa's heart feels slower. And Grandma's and Grandpapa's and Cecily's and Uncle David's. They all have heartbeats, but yours is better. Yours is like a drum, it always makes me feel safe to hear it like bump, bump, bump, bump. Now go to sleep, because if you don't get enough sleep you will be grouchy, like Oscar the Grouch." Bailey gave a final yawn, his mouth making a wide 'O'.
"Okay, Bay, I'm going to sleep now. I just wanted to tell you that you can always trust me. Kind of like we're on a team and I'm a really good team member who always catches the ball, or whatever." Nate knew that he could capture Bailey's attention with any kind of sports reference. He had learned more about the worlds of tennis, football, and basketball from Bailey than he ever had in gym class.
Nate moved Bailey's body slightly so that Bailey could snuggle into the mattress and create a comfortable groove. Bailey held out his hand and gripped Nate's thumb tightly. Nate looked at his son's peaceful face, the way it was growing more defined as he was growing up, the way that the light cast shadows over his caramel skin. He already had so many of what Nate thought of as Joshua's best qualities: he was strong and supportive—he already wanted to take control of situations and to make sure that everyone around him was doing okay.
As Nate watched the blanket rise and fall with his Bailey's breathing, he knew that he had made the right decision to have a child with Joshua. Even with this heartache, he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Because the child next to him was perfect: gentle but determined, caring but heroic. Nate had spent such a long time thinking that fatherhood was a pleasure that he could not be afforded, that he would never be able to have children—that he would spend his whole life feeling like something was missing.
Sometimes Bailey looked so much like Joshua that it took Nate's breath away. He was a constant reminder of what he had lost, but he was also a reminder of the love that he had once felt. Nate had wanted to give Bailey a solid family unit so badly; he had promised himself that his child would feel loved and stable. It broke his heart that he couldn't give Bailey that stability, that there was nothing he could do to give him both parents back.
Nate closed his eyes and tried to imagine what the future would be like. What form it would take, where they would live, what they would do, how he would explain Joshua's absence to Bailey. But the image of his last night with Joshua kept lodging itself in his brain. He remembered the touch of his skin, the warm smell of him, and the safety Nate felt in their embrace. Nate shook his head as if he could somehow dislodge thoughts of the past. He knew that something was beginning to shift inside of him, that he was growing a little bit stronger, that he could show up for his son a little bit more. At the same time, he would still do anything in the world to speak to Joshua, to have him back, to have his family in one place.