Chapter Five Day One of Reignite
Five
Day One of Reignite
When our tires hit gravel, I look up from my book to see a group of seven people, and what is either a very short adult or a child, huddled under a red and blue motel sign, seemingly unaware that rain is beating down onto them and all their luggage. Sorry, not luggage. Onto them and their oversized backpacks.
They’re similar to the ones Caleb came home with a few days ago. He enthusiastically informed me that they were sixty-five-liter rucksacks recommended to him by some guy from Focal’s marketing department named Kent who has successfully hiked Mount Kilimanjaro. My first reaction to this was wondering why any business would measure the capacity of their product with how much water it could hold when it’s built to hold clothes and other nonliquid items. Then my thoughts turned to the grotesque amounts of ball-chafing Kent must have experienced on his nineteen-thousand-foot journey in the Tanzanian heat. What I said out loud to Caleb was: Thank you.
Once Caleb warmed up to the idea and got Kent’s two cents, I think his distaste for the outdoors was overtaken by the excitement about what sort of gadgets he could buy. The heavy-duty backpacks, the sleeping bags that fold impossibly small, the cooking and eating supplies, the tent that he pitched in our living room, disassembled and built again in repetition until he got his assembly time down to “just under eight minutes.” He even bought a multiknife tool with a built-in compass—as if the guy hasn’t relied on an app to direct him from our home to his office daily for the past six years.
Unfortunately, Caleb deciding to take a full week off—like off the grid, off—meant that he’s been working pretty much nonstop in the past week. So other than expressing his enthusiasm over his gizmos-and-gadgets-a-plenty, we’ve not had much time to talk about what comes next. Regardless, I’ve chosen to take his enthusiasm as a good sign.
Win was right, convincing him to do this wasn’t hard. That counts for something. At the very least, it means that we both want to work on this. That we recognize we can do better by and for each other.
As Helen recommended in her email after registration, I’ve bought us both journals. She didn’t say what to write in it, other than to bring it along, but I have already filled the first few pages with issues that I think Caleb and I should work through together during our sessions. The sessions I assume we will have, that is. Because, other than being told to meet at this dodgy-ass motel on the side of the highway at noon today, I have no clue what else awaits us.
I hope we haven’t accidentally joined some sort of children-of-the-forest, cultlike situation. I do think, admittedly, I’d easily fall victim to becoming a cult member. Win has dragged me away from many a street preacher and pamphlet-giver over the years, just before I was about to hand over my email address or signature. There’s something about a charismatic person speaking with confidence that acts like a golden, flickering light to my mothlike brain.
Why yes, kind stranger…I do want to know that I’m loved unconditionally, thank you so much! And yes, please do tell me about the afterlife—what is it like? And, sure, please tell me what to do and how to do it and when and where so I finally feel like I’m doing something right and understand whose judgment to measure that by. Perhaps my mother was onto something with her vague relationship with religion. If this doesn’t work, maybe I’ll give that a go.
Is divorce shameful if you choose to give up your life and join a nunnery? No one could judge Caleb for being left for another man if that man was Christ, right?
As Caleb begins reversing into a parking spot, I pull out my phone to text Win.
Sarah : You’re sure this isn’t a cult, right? It’s got cult vibes.
Win : Has Yvonne already started a sound bath? That was fast, even for her.
Sarah : What have you gotten us into?
Win : You can thank me later.
Win’s next text is a photo of Gus, my niece, sitting on the toilet without an ounce of context.
Sarah : Since when does she do that?!
Win : Bo put her on there because she’d been yelling “shit!” for the past hour.
Sarah : And?
Win : She pooped. I’m weirdly proud?
I quickly glance to my left, noticing that Caleb’s concentrated on his phone as well. Though, I suspect, it’s more last-minute vitally important work emails and less potty-training related text messages.
Sarah : As you should be!! How many almost two-year-olds potty-train themselves by using potty words? She’s a genius.
Win : At least she used the word in the right context, I guess, but her daycare won’t be thrilled. Also, I’m assuming this is goodbye? I’m going to miss you!!
Sarah : Just seven days and then I’ll be blowing up your phone once more.
Win : Until you sign the million-year soul contract and join their fray.
Sarah : Well, then I guess this is goodbye. See you in a cool mil.
Win : Be careful out there, okay? I know I’m the one who suggested it but imagining you and Caleb in nature has been keeping us up at night.
Sarah : Surrre…THAT is what is keeping you two horndogs up at night. I appreciate the concern, but we’ll be fine.
Win : Did you pack the baby wipes? U got to keep downstairs clean for when you two make up and make out.
Sarah : Never fucked in a tent…any tips?
Win : Not shocking considering you’ve never slept in a tent?? But seriously, did you remember the wipes? Nobody wants hiking-crotch.
Sarah : I have the wipes! Stop being so obsessed with my sex life, weirdo!
Win : Pot. Kettle. Black.
Sarah : KK! Losing signal! In the woods! Byeeeee!
Win : BE SAFE! And, as for tips, don’t fuck on the air mattress if you can avoid it. There’s nothing sadder than popping an air mattress and having to sleep on the hard ground.
Sarah : We have mats, not a mattress.
Win : Then put those mats to good use, babe.
“What’s got you smiling like that?” Caleb asks warmly, reaching over my lap to place his phone in the glove compartment.
“Win and Gus.”
“You’ve got a group chat already? Man, Gus is growing up so fast.”
I roll my eyes, smiling. I turn off my phone but toss it back and forth between my hands, hesitating to lock it away with Caleb’s just yet. “We won’t be able to take any photos,” I say, holding up the phone between us.
Caleb’s eyebrows raise alongside his crooked smirk.
“And, what if there’s an emergency? How would we call for help?” I ask.
“I’m sure that Helen and Yvonne have a plan for that.”
“What if someone mentions a movie or television show but no one can remember the name of the lead actor? Or song lyrics but not the title? What will we do? Sit in the frustration of not knowing for seven days?”
“I suppose we’ll just have to find the nearest cliff and put ourselves out of our misery.” Caleb leans over the center console and rubs his thumb along my chin as he cups my face. It feels oddly intimate. Emphasis on odd. Something about the juxtaposition of such a tender touch with the very reason we’re in this motel parking lot makes me uneasy. “Is this okay?” Caleb says, his smile faltering as his eyes focus on my face.
“Yeah, I think I’m just in my head a little bit.”
He nods, his hand stiffening the smallest amount, but not withdrawing. He takes a long breath that flares his nostrils, as his eyes hold on mine tenderly.
“Hi,” I whisper, the corner of my mouth resting against his palm.
Caleb smiles softly. “Hi, baby. I want to say, before we start, that I love you…and, I’m glad we’re here.”
I blink wordlessly at him. It’s strange that after many years of predicting his next move and hearing those three words time and time again, that I’m caught off guard. But I realize, upsettingly, that it’s been at least a few months since either of us have said I love you intentionally. We say it every day in routine. When we hang up a call, in the morning as Caleb leaves for work, and before we fall asleep—or, more accurately, before we roll onto our sides in bed to scroll on our phones. And it’s even stranger that hearing those three words said with intention and focus and purpose makes us being here feel redundant.
Let’s go home, I think. Intentional love is enough. We can go home, and I can find a job and hope that it gives me purpose, or at least leads me in some sort of productive direction, and then I’ll have something to point at and say that is just mine . We’ll go to therapy once a month and fuck like bunny rabbits again. We don’t need all of this. This was a stupid idea anyways. Caleb is practically allergic to the outdoors, and I didn’t properly break in my new hiking shoes that will most definitely give me blisters.
I open my mouth to laugh, to say What on earth are we doing? To say Let’s get out of here. To say I love you too and I think that can be enough.
But Caleb has the next word. “If this is what we need to do to get you out of your rut, then I’m happy to do it. Team Linwood, right?” He leans back and presents me his fist to bump with my own.
Annnnnd, there it is. Reality crashes in once again.
Caleb looks down at his fist, then to my face, and then slowly drops his hand to his lap. “No?” he asks, followed by an unsure, shaky laugh.
I stare longingly at him, holding eye contact for a lingering, quiet moment as his eyes narrow in confusion. Then, I delicately move to unbuckle my seatbelt, turning my body toward the front of the car. “This isn’t just for me, Cay.” I wait, listening diligently for his next words. Instead, the only sound between us is the rain that continues to fall against the windshield and roof of the car. “This is supposed to be for both of us,” I remind him. “To learn to communicate better. To look inward. To…reconnect,” I add.
“Right, of course, yeah.” Caleb’s eyes search the space between us as if he’s looking for a clue or memory or escape as he begins fiddling with his wedding ring. “I know.”
“But what you said kind of made it all about me…. Like I’m the broken cog in this otherwise functioning machine.” I smile disingenuously, attempting to hide my hurt. I don’t know why I do it, but it comes naturally.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says defensively, lifting his chin to face me. “You know that.”
Caleb will often say You know that when defending himself. Nothing gets under my skin quite like that phrase from his lips. To me, You know that is the equivalent of saying: You’re being irrational. Because if I did truly know what Caleb intended prior to every time he says You know that— I’d be creating a problem where there was none. I’d be choosing to believe that his intention is to hurt my feelings, which I never once have. I know Caleb is kind. I know he’s not the type of person who actively tries to harm someone. But just because he’s never trying to hurt me doesn’t mean he can’t and I’m tired of him throwing out that phrase like it’s some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card.
“I’m telling you how it felt to hear you say we were here to get out of my rut. ” I put my phone in the glove compartment with his and shut it. Goodbye world. “I don’t know what you meant by it, but I do know how it made me feel.”
“Okay,” he says, taking off his own seatbelt with a hefty attitudinal flare. “Well, sorry, then. I only meant that it was your idea to come, and I am happy to do it. I was only trying to have a nice moment before we got going.”
“Right,” I reply, in a matching, short tone. “But—” I stop myself, letting my eyes fall shut on a frustrated sigh, needing a moment to choose my next words wisely. Doesn’t he understand that this is part of why we’re here? I thought I’d made myself clear after the fundraiser—the roles of rescuer and rescued need to be put to rest. Do they not suffocate him in the same way?
After collecting myself, I hesitantly reach toward him, cupping his face like he’d done to me earlier. I rub my thumb along his stubble, thinking of the beard that will soon take its place after he goes seven days without shaving. Caleb’s mother passed along her very Greek genes to her son. He can grow a five-o’clock shadow by noon a few hours after a morning shave. He’s only grown it out once, and not on purpose. It was the week leading up to when Mom died, when we rotated between sleeping in brief shifts at home and sitting by her hospital bed. That memory fills my heart with a nostalgic sort of melancholy, and I fight to refocus my attention as I continue brushing his cheek.
“I’m grateful that you agreed to come, and that you want me to feel better…but I also need to know you’re receptive to this experience and what it can give you too.”
“I am,” he says, timidly placing his fingers onto the back of my hand before he looks down shyly. “I know I’ve got work to do. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
There it is, I think, we’re talking again. “See…” I smile up at him. “We’re communicating better already, and we haven’t even left the parking lot.” I dip down to catch his sight line. “And I love you too”—I say it with every bit of purpose that Caleb had, enunciating each word— “so much.”
His shoulders relax on a sigh, a small smile overtaking his lips. Looking at his mouth, I wonder if I should lean forward for a kiss. But as we breathe in and out together in tandem, letting the tense moment wash away, it doesn’t feel right to. It feels more intimate this way. Looking into each other’s eyes as we overcome the first of what will probably be several difficult conversations to come in the next week. Too often we’re guilty of sealing things with a kiss, to move past a moment. In the same way we’ve been saying I love you; a little peck here and there has become routine. I don’t remember the last time we kissed to only kiss. Not for a greeting or to say goodbye or as a precursor to sex. We can work on that too.
“I’ll get the bags,” Caleb says, pressing his forehead against mine. I nod as he leans away from me. Wearing a soft frown, he puts his jacket’s hood up, presses the tailgate button next to the steering wheel, and exits the car into the rain.
I lower the sun visor to check my reflection in the small rectangular mirror. It’s going to be okay, I silently inform the nervous woman with my mother’s eyes. I wonder if there will ever be a day where I look in the mirror without a tinge of bittersweet sadness—the sense of missing her but having her close.
“You coming, baby?” Caleb asks from the trunk, projecting his voice over the sound of rainfall as he slings his bag over his shoulder.
“Yep, sorry!” I answer, putting up my hood and stepping out of the car directly into a puddle.
Here we go.