Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Will
Too many of my life's pivotal moments have happened right here. This room has never changed, even when the exhibitions have. I run my finger across the engraved dedication plate and I think of myself as a young man and the couple that inspired it.
We've done this before. Come here when things are tough.
Something I did before her.
Because of her.
With her.
Without her .
I remember my face being younger sitting here, less weathered by time and loss. She probably thinks the same thing when she looks at me now, though she'd never say it. The same way I catch glimpses of an easier version of herself, before everything happened. Probably just my mind playing tricks, wanting to see what isn't there anymore.
I knew she had been avoiding me. She looked different today in that old kitchen light.
Her hair is shorter, maybe she's taller. She's not taller. She's been avoiding this conversation, too afraid of what it would do to me, but I've known it was coming.
"You turned down Chicago last year," I say quietly. "And San Francisco before that."
"I wasn't ready then," she admits, twisting the ring on her finger, that vertical band of diamonds wrapped around her finger like a stack of books. "But I think... I know, I resent staying in the city just to be nearer to you. And because of that, I began resenting you, too. Even though you never asked me to. Your life was always here and I didn’t know how to leave that behind."
I would have rather she'd come home, talk to me about it. It's not a fair expectation, she doesn't owe me any weight in her decisions now. But still, her guilt in that is clear, and why she obviously dragged her feet on the topic.
She came home today for the first time in a year to tell me she’s taking a job in Seattle. Finally closing the chapters of her life that took place here. And when she showed up today to tell me, this is the only place I felt we needed to return. I brought her here because she, too, has memories of this place. I don’t know if they overwhelm her the same way they do me.
I came to terms with it, she needs to move on, move away, grow away from here, from me . Guilt and obligation have held her long enough.
But before she goes, I need her to remember more than just me. I need her to remember…
Arden and I had the greatest of loves, that doesn’t just evaporate into the universe. Dissolve into the air. That has to help her through this now. Knowing that love is still in the air we breathe, it’s in her blood, no matter how far she needs to run.
We’ve spent time talking about it all now. Her fears about moving. Her reasons for going. We talked about selling the house. I offered to go with her. But that’s not what she needs.
“How did you always make life look so easy?” she asks. She’s been struggling recently, I know she has, throwing herself into her work, and being a mother, but taking on that role almost makes it all that much harder.
“I think when you love someone, really, it becomes you, and in that way, it can be as easy as breathing.”
“What about now?”
“My lungs don’t fill the way they used to. I try to take a deep breath, but there just isn’t anything left to inhale.” I say.
She pushes her glasses up to pull the hair from her face as she presses the base of her hands into her eyes, rubbing the tears free.
“Aren’t you disappointed in me?”
And there it is, the thing that’s kept her away. How could I ever be disappointed in someone who makes me so proud?
“We’re on the same team. Nothing changes that.”