chapter 89
Tobey was asleep. I stood, shocked, in our bedroom doorway, the rising sun hidden behind our blackout shades.
I had practiced a variety of defenses and excuses, fully prepared to walk in the door to a distraught husband.
Yet, three or four hours after I normally got home, he was asleep, his hand stretched out on my empty side of the bed, the blankets bunched around his waist, his upper back exposed.
I dropped my bag by the door and walked quietly to his bedside table, picking up his cell and unlocking it.
His ringer had been off, two missed calls, two voicemails from the stadium, my text unread.
I unlocked it and deleted the missed calls, the voicemails, and my text.
Then I replaced it, pulling off my clothes and stepping into our bathroom, my shower quick, my sneak into bed done without waking him.
I carefully lifted his hand and slid next to him, his body rolling to his side, eyes remaining closed, his features relaxed in sleep.
I studied him for a minute, the first in a long time.
When we’d first married, I’d often stared at him in the night, wondering about the man I had walked down the aisle to, so much about him unknown.
I had thought, back then, that he was handsome.
He’d changed, his boyish good looks faded, his features harder in their lines as he lost any youthful fat.
But he was certainly a handsome man. One who turned his fair share of heads.
And he loved me, something I seemed to constantly remind myself of.
I’d done that for a long time. Overlooked my own depth of love because of our friendship, the strength of our marriage.
This would all be easier if he was a jackass.
This would all be easier if he had a mistress, or a stable of affairs, or if he was unhappy.
I had no excuse for my behavior, nothing to blame it on, except that I’d never really been in love with him.
My heart, it just hadn’t been available to give.
And maybe that was the only reason that mattered. Maybe if I had loved him, and he had been a bunch of terrible things, then I would have overlooked all of them, just as he overlooked my lack of love.
When his alarm went off, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.