Chapter 2 Everything Changes
Friday comes and I decide to surprise Kirk after work.
He mentioned earlier in the week that he's been craving Thai food from the place on Birch Street.
So I leave City Hall a few minutes early and drive across town to pick up his usual order.
Pad thai with extra peanuts. Spring rolls.
Thai iced tea. I order myself green curry and put it all on my card because Kirk still owes me for the groceries I bought last weekend and I've stopped keeping track of things like that.
The restaurant is busy so I wait about twenty minutes for the food.
I sit on the bench near the front door and check my email.
There's a message from Rowena confirming that the records preservation project officially begins Monday.
She's included the contact information for Ross Hughes at the County Archives.
I save the email and make a mental note to review the document inventory I started putting together earlier this week.
The food comes up and I carry the bags to my car.
Kirk's apartment is about fifteen minutes from here.
He didn't say he had plans tonight and when I texted him this morning he said he'd probably be home around six.
It's six thirty now. I figure I'll just show up.
We used to do that all the time. Surprise each other with dinner or a movie or just the desire to spend an evening together.
We haven't done it in a while but that doesn't mean we can't start again.
The evening is warm and most of the apartment windows are open.
I can hear televisions and music and someone's kid yelling about something in one of the ground-floor units.
As I reach the top of the stairs and turn the corner toward Kirk's door I hear voices.
His patio door is open about halfway. The blinds are pulled but not completely closed.
I stop walking.
The voice I hear isn't Kirk's. It's a woman's voice. Young. Upset. I can hear her clearly from where I'm standing about ten feet from the patio door.
"I'm not asking you to be happy about it, Kirk. I'm telling you what's happening."
"I know what you're telling me." That's Kirk. His voice is tight. Controlled. "But we need to figure out what we're going to do about it."
"What we're going to do? I'm almost three months along. There's nothing to figure out. This is happening."
My feet don't move. My hands are holding the bags of Thai food and my fingers have gone tight around the plastic handles. I can feel my pulse in my throat and my ears and my wrists.
"Kallie, listen to me." His voice drops lower. "I'm still with Brook. You know that. I told you I was going to handle things but I haven't had time and now this."
"You told me you were basically done with her. You said it was over. That's what you told me when this started."
"I said it was complicated."
"You said you were almost finished. That's a direct quote, Kirk. You looked me in the face and told me you were almost finished with that relationship. And now I'm pregnant and you're telling me you haven't even talked to her yet?"
The bags in my hands feel heavier than they should. The Thai food. His favorite. Extra peanuts. I drove across town to pick it up because I wanted to surprise him. Because I thought tonight could be a good night. A normal night. The kind of night we used to have.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Kirk says.
"Well it did happen. And I need to know what you're going to do because I can't just sit around waiting for you to figure out your life."
I take a step backward. Then another. The plastic bags shift and rustle and I hold them tighter to keep them quiet. I don't know how long I've been standing here. Thirty seconds. A minute. Long enough.
I walk back down the stairs slowly. I keep my eyes on my feet because I don't trust myself to look at anything else right now. When I reach my car I open the driver's side door and sit down. I put the bags of food on the passenger seat. I close the door. I put my hands on the steering wheel.
Three months along. Almost three months along.
That's what she said. Three months means this started at least three months ago.
Probably longer. How much longer I don't know.
I don't know anything. I don't know who Kallie is or what she looks like or how long Kirk has been seeing her.
I don't know if anyone else knows. I don't know if this is the only time or if there have been others before her.
I don't know anything about the last nine years of my life anymore because the person at the center of all of it just turned out to be someone I never actually knew.
My phone rings. It's Kirk. The screen shows his name and the photo I set as his contact picture two years ago. Him smiling at a baseball game with a beer in his hand. I stare at the screen until it stops ringing. He doesn't leave a voicemail.
I start the car and pull out of the parking lot.
I drive carefully because my hands are shaking and the last thing I need right now is to get into an accident.
I take the long way home. Past the high school.
Past the park where Kirk and I used to walk on Sunday mornings before he decided weekends were for sleeping in and catching up on work.
Past the gas station where we used to stop for coffee on road trips back when we still took road trips.
Past the diner where he took me on our first real date.
I remember that night so clearly it hurts.
He wore a blue button-down and he held the door for me and he asked me a hundred questions about my job and my hobbies and my family like he genuinely wanted to know every single thing about me.
I believed that version of him for nine years.
I built my entire adult life around that version of him.
All these places that meant something to me an hour ago don't feel the same anymore. They belong to a version of my life that turned out not to be real.
My phone rings again. Kirk. I don't answer. It rings a third time about two minutes later. I turn the volume off and put the phone in my bag on the passenger seat next to the Thai food that's getting cold.
When I get home I sit in the driveway for a long time.
I don't know how long. The engine is off and the windows are down and the neighborhood is settling into that quiet evening rhythm where people are inside having dinner and watching television and living their normal lives.
I watch the house across the street. The Petersons.
They've been married for thirty-something years.
Their living room light is on and I can see the blue flicker of their TV through the curtains.
Thirty years. I couldn't even get nine.
I carry the food inside and set it on the kitchen counter.
I'm not hungry. I don't think I'll ever be hungry again but I know that's not true.
I know that eventually I'll eat and sleep and go to work and do all the normal things that people do after their lives fall apart.
But right now I just stand in my kitchen looking at two bags of Thai food and trying to understand how I got here.
I think about the last few months. The phone calls he stepped outside to take.
The nights he stayed at his apartment instead of coming here.
The text messages he angled away from me.
The vague answers about work. Fine. Busy.
Same stuff. All of it was a cover. All of it was him buying time while he figured out how to manage two women at once.
And the worst part is that I believed him. Every time. Every excuse. Every casual dismissal of my concern. I believed him because I loved him and because after nine years I thought I knew who he was. I thought I knew the man I was building a life with.
I was wrong.
My phone lights up on the counter. Another call from Kirk. Then a text.
Hey where are you? Tried calling. Everything okay?
I read it once and set the phone face down on the counter. I don't respond. I don't know what I would say even if I wanted to. What are the right words for a moment like this? What do you say to someone who has been lying to you for months while you planned a future together?
I put the food in the refrigerator. I'll eat it tomorrow or throw it away.
It doesn't matter. I stand at the kitchen sink and look out the window at my backyard.
The garden bed along the fence that I've been meaning to mulch.
The plastic patio chairs that wobble. The little concrete slab where I sat this morning drinking coffee and feeling content with my life.
This morning feels like it happened a week ago. A month ago. Some distant point in the past when I was still the person who believed Kirk Reed was a good man who loved her. That person is gone now and I don't know who replaces her yet.
I walk through the house slowly. I notice things I've never paid attention to before.
The framed photo of Kirk and me on the bookshelf in the living room.
We're at a winery in the valley. I'm smiling.
He's looking at his phone. I never noticed that before.
I always just saw the smile. My smile. As if that was enough for both of us.
There's a jacket of his draped over the back of the kitchen chair. A pair of his running shoes by the front door. A bottle of his preferred hot sauce in the cabinet next to the stove. Little pieces of him scattered through my house. Evidence of a relationship that was supposed to be permanent.
I walk to the bathroom and wash my face. I brush my teeth. I change into the old university sweatshirt I wore this morning when the world still made sense and I get into bed.
The house is quiet. The same quiet that felt peaceful this morning now feels wrong. Too empty. Too still.
I stare at the ceiling and I think about what I heard. His exact words.
I'm still with Brook. You know that. I told you I was going to handle things.