chapter 22
Decca
For the first time in three months of marriage, I woke to find my husband in our bed.
Not just in our bed. Velcroed to me in our bed.
With my shoulders pinned by his heavy arm, I stretched to silence my alarm. His thigh hiked higher over my hip as he adjusted me like a body pillow.
Was I just a body pillow, or was this something more? Maybe sleep was the only reality in which he couldn’t pretend we weren’t really married. Maybe this was his body telling him to let go with me, dive in and treat this marriage the right way.
I closed my eyes and melted under the weight of his arm, the press of his leg on mine. The lingering, exotic scents of my fragrance mingled with a salty, spicy, ocean air of his. Together, it reminded me of a pirate. But like a hot pirate with golden skin and a shirt of pure white linen. A pirate who bathed twice a day. I basked in the sun-drenched arms of this pirate, feeling the soft underside of his forearm against my cheek, wanting to turn my head slowly, imperceptibly, to kiss him there, leaving him with a trace of my breath.
This could be every morning. I just needed to have patience. One day, he’d come around and realize he wanted me as much in his waking life as he did in his sleep. I’d give myself five more seconds to float through the bliss. Then I’d get up.
We had a guest in the other room, which meant I needed to brush my teeth and get down to the kitchen to make the coffee before Chris slipped away without an honest explanation. I hadn’t been fair to him. And I shouldn’t have blindsided him like that. He covered well, but I knew he was hurt.
As I inched over, easing my way out from under Gus’s body, he murmured something incomprehensible in a deep and husky morning croak. I let out an involuntary groan at the sound of his voice. I wanted to melt back into the mattress again and savor his embrace.
Coffee. Chris. Explanations.
I slithered out from the quilt, the worn floorboards soft and warm on the soles of my feet.
I loved all the seasons. There was something to celebrate, something to revel in during every month of the year, but I certainly relished that little convenience about summer.
I tugged a pair of leggings under my favorite Cramps t-shirt, knotting it at the waist so it didn’t swim right off me, and tied my hair back in a ponytail before brushing my teeth in the shared bath before sneaking downstairs.
Chris was waiting for me. Leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed. He was giving me that look. The one I knew too well. It was the same look he always gave when I needed rescuing from somebody, which meant he’d seen through our farce. I just didn’t know how to tell him I hadn’t wanted it to be a farce.
“Not before coffee, Chris. It’s too early to be told my life choices are shit.”
“Coffee’s obviously the right choice this early in the morning. But that’s not at all what I was going to say.”
He was quiet for a while. The clock ticked. Were seconds usually this slow?
The water was overflowing the tea kettle. I stared out the window, half in need of caffeine and more rest—sleep was impossible, lying so close to Gus’s tense figure—and half dreading this conversation. Chris reached around me to turn the faucet off.
“Unless that’s what you need. Do you want me to call you out on something, Dec? What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“It’s been a while since anyone asked me that.” I lit the gas and started counting scoops of Eight o’Clock coffee I was adding to the French press.
“I don’t know. I feel like I’m in a huge ocean whirlpool some days. I’m staying afloat without having to flail too much to keep my head above water because it’s all just beginning, but sooner or later, it’s going to start moving so fast I’ll get sucked in, and there won’t be any way to prevent the drowning.”
“Well...” he looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “As long as everything’s fine.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I groaned, folding at the waist to collapse my head and hands on the edge of the sink.
“I can’t tell you firsthand, but I don’t think anyone knows what they’re doing when they first get married.”
His words were helpful. Reassuring, even. He wasn’t asking for answers. He didn’t chastise. Was it possible he hadn’t seen through our ruse? Did Gus and I fake being in love that well?
“And you’ve never struck me as the matrimonial type, so you probably know even less what to do. Although I can’t say I’m not sorry I made that assumption. I always thought you and I would... Never mind. I’m sorry I—”
“I thought we might, too.” I said quietly, leaning back on the counter next to him.
He adjusted his glasses, biting his lip, nodding in resignation.
Chris and I had never been the right fit, except as friends. I’d always assumed he’d thought likewise. On paper, we were perfect, which was why we’d tried again and again. I figured one day, if he hadn’t found the right woman, or if the chemistry suddenly ramped up, we’d end up together for real.
The sex had always been good. He was a competent and giving partner, but something about it had just felt like a way to relieve tension; blind release after difficult cases, when he was between real girlfriends. I’d never felt the explosion of hormones with him, the surge of dopamine I got whenever I thought of Gus.
Once Chris started being honest with himself, I knew he’d see it, too.
He cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up. It was a thing he did when he was uncomfortable. “So, Father…what was it?”
“Constantinos.” I tried to say it like he did, with the d instead of the last t, and the round Os. I wasn’t entirely terrible with languages, but Greek was kicking my ass.
“Is it—it must be—your church too, now?“ He gave me a pointed look, filled with meaning I didn’t quite understand.
“Where are you going with this?”
He scratched his chin, the day-old stubble rasping as he talked more to himself than to me. “I’m guessing it’s a bit like the military. Can’t just pack up and move? Leave your congregation?”
“Why would we move?”
He exhaled loudly, dropping his chin to his chest. “There’s some news I was saving. Thought you’d be thrilled to hear it. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“What?”
“Jeanette’s retiring.” He looked across the room, steadying himself before making eye contact again.
The impact of those two words hit like an atomic bomb of epically ironic proportions. I breathed out slowly. I knew why he was telling me. Why he’d waited until now.
“And Stacy?”
“Doesn’t want it.” He shook his head.
I closed my eyes. I could practically hear the creaky hinges as the gates of my dream job swung wide the fuck open—before slamming shut again, just as I reached the threshold. “Anyone else?”
“It’s too political for them. Too public. You know what it’s like there. They just want to dig in the dirt and maybe take on a few students. You’re the one who has the charisma for it. I’m just saying, if you want it, you’ll have to submit your C.V., go through the proper channels. There might be some international competition, but since you’ve got the DMORT qualifications, the years in the field, the publications, plus Jeanette as your old mentor...” He trailed off. He didn’t have to say it.
Then he did.
“Fuck it. This is your dream, Decca.”
Yeah. It was.
Being the Director of the Forensic Anthropology Center was what I’d always wanted. What I earned my Ph.D. for. What I’d nearly broken myself researching and publishing for. It was exactly what Jeanette had groomed me for.
And now, if what Chris was saying was true, the directorship was about to be handed to me.
And I couldn’t take it. Because I’d married a man who didn’t get to decide where he lived. Being a priest was like being in the military. His bishop placed him where he was needed. And where he was needed was his home parish in Franklin. Three hours and a whole world away from the Body Farm in Knoxville.
The news stung, but remarkably, it didn’t knock me off my feet. As the seconds ticked by, the knowledge sank in, and I realized I wasn’t that fazed. The venom wasn’t as painful as I might have expected.
“Well, thanks. But I’m not going to leave Gus for a job, no matter how much I want the job. It’s still just a job.”
He shrugged. “Plenty of couples commute. Especially in academia.”
“I... No. I’m in this for real, so I need to be here for real. Work used to be the thing I did for me. My only hobby. Now I’m starting to hate that it’s so constant. I married Gus so I could have a life. I’m trying to scale back.”
Saying it made me realize it was all true.
I continued. “It’s been really hard these past three years. Sometimes, I just want to go back to how things used to be. Before Granny died. Sometimes I want her to make me a pot of beans and cornbread and tell me some proverb that’s so soft on my heart it feels like being wrapped in an old quilt. Gus doesn’t even know it, but he’s helped me through a lot of that grief. He’s made me feel less alone. Even when he was just a face and a voice on a computer. I can’t cut us off at the ankles before we’ve even gotten a chance to see what we could be to each other.” Tears stung my eyes, and it became a lot harder to talk.
Chris leaned against me, his tall, lean body warm through his rumpled gingham button-down, offering comfort, but not too much.
It was subtle, but he was graciously bowing out, letting me know he’d already accepted a smaller space in my heart.
Normally, he would have hugged me. For all his thin wiriness, he was a good hugger. His body was good at other things too, but now it felt so foreign that we had ever been sexually involved. I loved him as a friend. As a romantic partner, he was kind of like an old shirt that wasn’t quite your style, but it was flattering enough, and you kept it in your closet anyway, and wore it way too often just because it was still hanging there.
That painted an entirely unflattering portrait of an entirely good man. Chris was so much more than that. Way too good for me. Though I really had thought we’d end up together one day for real.
Then I met Gus, and from our first conversation, he was like the most buttery black leather jacket you found in a cool vintage shop. It fit just right. It even smelled like pipe tobacco and not the floor of the original CBGBs.
Now I was married to that jacket. Its magic swept me away every time I put it on, but he never allowed me to wear it very long. There was no romance. No sex. My sex life had been better when I’d only had platonic feelings. Now that I was head over heels for Gus, I lived like a nun.
Here I was, bitterly craving the arms of the old shirt again, just for some of the human companionship that had fled when Gus and I were married.
The kettle boiled, pulling me out of my self-centeredness. I poured the water over the grounds, stirring them and setting a timer.
“You know what’s really hard to admit? Sometimes, I just want to go to Gus’s hockey games and make big dinners and do domestic shit. My work is my life, but for the first time, I find myself hoping that someday... it won’t be.”
“Sounds like you made the right decision, then. Forget about the job. Like you said, it’s just a job, anyway.”
“I’m too young, anyway.” I plunged the thing down to trap the grounds. “Thirty-two is really young to be a university admin. And I’ve only gotten this far, this fast, because I was a precocious wunderkind with no life. Jeanette was still getting her Ph.D. at forty-something. There’s plenty of time. If things fall through.”
“That’s smart. I think it’s normal to want to slow down and start thinking of the people in our lives and how much spending time with them matters to us.” He looked down at his shoes, biting his lip.
My intuition pinged. Was Chris thinking of anyone in particular? Who was she?
“I still don’t get why you didn’t tell me about you and Gus. If it was some big romantic gesture, like a Vegas thing, why wasn’t that the first thing that came out of your mouth? Why didn’t it come up after four hours in a car together?”
My lips parted. I still didn’t know if I should come clean or make up some excuse for why I’d kept the cat in the bag.
“Morning,” growled a sleepy voice from the stairs. Gus padded into the kitchen wearing loose flannel pjs bottoms and no shirt. It was the least clothed he’d ever been around me. And shirtless Gus shut down my brain and all its processes. It wasn’t his broad shoulders or strong chest. It wasn’t the dusting of chestnut hair across his pecs. It was, like everything with him, the way he carried himself. He didn’t walk anywhere. He swept into a room like he swept out from behind the altar. Now he didn’t even have the billowing gold robes trailing behind.
“Thanks so much for letting me crash last night. It was nice watching the game with someone for a change,” Chris said, standing upright.
“Anytime, buddy. It’s always nice to meet a friend of Dec’s.”
Chris winced. “Sure.” He tried to play it off like it hadn’t been a veiled insult, but it didn’t quite work. Not with me. “I’m going to take off. Still not feeling great after four beers last night.”
“Don’t you want coffee?”
“I just need to get on the road.”
“Drive safely, Chris. I’ll say a prayer for Vanderbilt,” Gus waved.
“I guess it couldn’t hurt their season.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
I threaded my hand through the handle of my mug and followed Chris onto the porch, closing the door behind us. He dropped his overnight bag to finagle his boots on, then sighed and reached for my mug. He sipped the scalding black brew, holding my gaze over the ceramic rim. It was familiar and easy being with him. After grad school, working in various labs together, and over a decade of friendship, our movements were synchronized and natural, even on this new precipice.
“I feel like this is goodbye,” I said.
“I wish it wasn’t.” He smiled his crooked smile and took another sip. He’d always liked his coffee scalding. There was no way the man had any taste buds left because he’d burned them all off years ago.
“We’ll see each other.”
“Not like before. I...” he scrunched his face, like it was painful to get the words out. “I need some time, Decca. To move on. I was under a lot of wrong impressions that became very clear to me yesterday.”
“Oh, Chris. Why didn’t you—”
“It doesn’t matter. But I really do need to get going.” He smiled bigger now. “The cat sitter’s mom said she had a sleepover yesterday, so Nubi’s probably raiding the pantry for treats as we speak. Then she’ll be incontinent and there’ll be cat diarrhea all over the carpet in my bedroom.”
“You still have Anubis?”
“She’s sixteen now, and still practically feral.” He looked into the mug like he wanted another sip. Then thought better of it and handed it to me. I placed it on the porch railing, then plastered my body to his in a deep hug.
“I’ll miss you,” I said into his chest. I felt a huff in response and his reluctant arms finally wrapped around me and held, though not as tightly as usual.