Chapter 8
It’s Not a Metaphor
I stare ahead at the wall of Tanner’s childhood room.
Blanket huddled around me.
Rain droplets stopped dripping from my bangs a while ago, all dry now, but I still feel wet somehow.
The door was left open, and I can hear Tanner talking to his parents downstairs.
The kids are in the room next to this one, and I was told they’re asleep, despite everything.
It’s still raining, but only a light drizzle, the worst of it gone.
Apparently Tanner went back to the house despite numerous protests from his parents just to throw a tarp or something over the gaping wound in our roof that now stretches open above our bed.
It’s not a metaphor. It’s not symbolism.
I refuse to let this odd and terrible night be reduced to some symbol that my marriage is totally fucking broken apart.
It’s just nature.
Shit happens, right?
I already got the biggest, bone-crushing hug from Nadine. She was in tears. I ended up having to be the one to comfort her.
The kids were surprisingly okay. Joshua completely changed his tune and suddenly acted like he was on a fun adventure, coming over to the main house in the rain.
Marcus kept cracking jokes with his little brother, as if to ease any lingering tension, and I realize only now like a total idiot that it’s likely been their thing their whole lives: big bro looking after little bro from foster home to foster home, playing the role of both father and brother, keeping his little brother not only physically safe, but emotionally safe, too.
That’s supposed to be our job.
The thought breaks my heart so much worse than a big falling murder branch ever could.
By the time Tanner returns, I’m already rolled onto my side on the bed with the lights off, listening to the soft rain against the window.
He slides into bed next to me and wraps his arm around my stomach.
I let him. “I’m sorry, babe,” he whispers into my ear.
I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for, but he keeps doing it.
“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I love you, babe. ”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I almost killed you.”
“You didn’t. Mother Nature did.”
“That was the tree branch you told me to cut down. The one over our house. I didn’t do it. And it almost killed you.”
“Just a freak accident. We’re alive and together and safe, all of us. That’s what matters right now.”
“I’m so sorry.”
I sit up suddenly, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, and stare at the window.
I feel Tanner watching me from behind.
We don’t say anything, both of us listening to the rain.
“I see it now,” he says quietly.
I peer over my shoulder. “See what?”
“What you were saying. Months ago.” His voice is eerily calm and resolved. In other words, nothing like it usually is. “I see how we’re different people. How our frequencies have been off for a few years now. How … How I can be a b-burden to you.”
Please don’t tell me he’s crying. “Tanner …”
“I see it now, babe.” He takes a deep breath and rolls onto his back. “Maybe in the morning, we … we should have the talk. And discuss things. Like … how we’ll tell everyone.”
His words freeze my bones.
His surrender.
I’m not sure I ever actually expected him to surrender.
I’ve gotten so used to him fighting for us, I guess I never considered he might actually give up.
After all of these months of playing along.
Going with it. Acting like we’re fine. I don’t think I’m quite ready for this side of Tanner—the side of him who stops fighting.
“It’s okay,” he says, then gently takes my hand.
“Maybe you were right. We’ll love each other so much more as friends.
I’m … I’m so fuckin’ sorry I did this to you.
I can’t imagine the hell you must’ve been enduring all this time …
because I selfishly wouldn’t listen to you …
to what you wanted, to how you felt. I should have listened.
I’m such a shit listener. We all are, us Strongs …
stubborn as all get out.” He rubs his thumb across the back of my hand.
It’s unexpectedly soft. “I just want you to be happy.”
The way he’s looking at me right now reminds me of the first day he came back from college that one summer long ago, strutted into my parents’ diner with a crowd of his football buddies while I was working, and ordered one of my specialty desserts.
How we could go from that moment in that diner—all the way to here, to now, to this tension-filled bed on this stormy night.
Despite everything, we fall asleep on that bed, cuddled up and on top of the sheets, like high school boyfriends on a school night.
Next morning, I’m dinged by a text from each of my parents.
I guess Nadine’s been busy making the rounds.
“Nothing at all, just lost a few shingles,” says my ma when she and my pa arrive. Of course they come over the very second they are able to. “Your pa will patch them right up.”
Pa shoots her a funny look, gripping the steaming-hot cup of coffee Tanner’s dad just offered him, and chuckles. “You sure like to think I’m still twenty and racing up and down ladders.”
My ma’s cool hand touches my cheek, appraising me like I’m still ten and just got a bruise at the playground. “You still look a bit shell-shocked. Have you had any breakfast yet? Orange juice?”
“I’m fine,” I assure her. The kids are at the dining room table eating pancakes that Jacky-Ann whipped up.
Marcus keeps poking his brother in the nose with a spoon and making a funny sound, which causes him to laugh.
My thoughts are so slow today. I feel like I’m watching someone else’s life. “Think I could use, um …”
“A walk? That, I can assist with.” Without further ado, my ma hooks an arm into mine and leads me straight out the door not a handful of minutes after their arrival.
I haven’t been outside since the storm. It passed several hours ago before the sun even came up. The scent of rain and grass hangs in the air.
With the Strong main house being the fortress that it is, I see no discernible damage at all as I walk with my ma along the paths that circle the house.
“Your pa and I almost called it quits,” she casually says as we walk past the pool and the large side patio.
I glance at her. “What? Why?”
“Oh, the usual stuff. Stresses of life. Bitin’ each other’s heads off on the tough days. I kept sayin’ it was a bad idea to mix up our marriage with business, over and over again, but here we are all of these years later, old n’ reckless …”
“Why didn’t you tell me this happened?”
“My point is, no one’s love looks like anyone else’s, which I had to teach myself.
I kept comparin’ myself and William to everyone I knew and thought we must’ve been a pair of Martians, the way we act.
Love sure don’t look the same after so many years roll by.
You start to worry you two don’t fit anymore ‘cause he’s got these habits you used to adore that now grate on you.
I mean, you love him to death, but can’t he stop smackin’ his lips so loudly when you eat fried chicken together?
Just fried chicken! Nothin’ else! What is it with his lips smackin’ and fried chicken? ”
“Was this during Halloween? Or last summer? When did you two almost call it quits?”
“Before you were born, sweetheart.”
That brings me to such a sudden stop, my ma nearly flies over her own feet, grabbing my arm to stop herself. “Before I was born??”
After recovering from nearly having had gravity fling her into the pool, she pats me on the hand, says, “Over here,” then directs me to one of the benches overlooking the water.
“I chose for once not to pry. I know you need to handle your life the way you need to handle it, it wasn’t in my place to meddle.
And I spoke to your pa so many restless nights, stayin’ up late worryin’ about you.
But ever since Tanner made that big ol’ flashy announcement during that one Friday dinner way back when, I just knew it in my heart, I knew somethin’ wasn’t right.
Your pa kept sayin’ ‘oh, it’s just your heartburn.
’” She snorts. “Sure. Someone’s heart was burnin’, but not like how he thought.
” She pats my face again. “You can fool every last person in this town, but not your ma. Not me.”
Of course I can’t fool my ma. Honestly, I’m surprised by how well she’s obeyed herself to not meddle. After that dinner so long ago, I expected her to call me right away and order me to tell her everything. I was in such a state, I just might have.
“Ma …” I start. Somehow my hands have ended up in her lap where she clutches them tightly, rubbing. “It’s just that we …”
Then I just can’t. I break down.
Like, ugly sobbing.
The kind I’d never in a million years admit I’m even capable of. Every last twisted-up knot inside me lets loose and the dam of repressed emotion crumbles, flooding the world with everything I’ve been holding inside.
And my ma hugs me so dang fast, I don’t know whether she means to console me or to hide my exploding powder keg of emotion from any possible onlookers in the house.
I think it’s what I needed, honestly.
Feels like I lose twenty pounds in just pent-up tears alone.
Best diet ever.
Half an hour later, my ma and I are back inside, and I learn that Nadine did, in fact, witness the whole scene from the kitchen window, but was “really, totally, honestly trying not to”.
It doesn’t end up mattering; everyone assumed I was crying because of our house getting crushed in.
Tanner’s papa tells us it can be fixed up quickly; between him and his brother Gary, they have a big, skilled construction crew of people for these sorts of things, constantly maintaining both Strong ranches as they do.
He could even have it fixed as early as tomorrow afternoon, provided his crew has the materials.