8. Etta #2
I could see him wanting to understand. See him standing there ready to listen, ready to take in whatever I was about to tell him and fix it.
"The mornings," I said. "Being out on the water before light, checking the beds, watching the sun come up—that's not something I need relieved of. That's not a burden. That's?—"
I stopped.
I couldn't say it. Couldn't stand there and explain it to him and watch him not understand.
I couldn't watch him fail me again.
"Well. It doesn't matter, does it."
He looked at me. The box still open in his hand.
After a long moment, he closed it and put it back in his pocket.
"Etta—"
"Is there really a manager?" I asked.
He was quiet for a long moment.
I watched something shift in his face. Saw him realize I'd known. That I'd been standing here listening to him offer me things that didn't exist.
"No," he said finally. "Not yet. But I can find one. I've been looking. I just wanted to tell you it was handled so you wouldn't have to worry about it."
I nodded.
"You were going to lie to me."
"I wasn't lying. I was going to find someone. I still can. Etta, I can have someone lined up by?—"
"Don't."
He stopped.
"I don't want a manager," I said. "I never wanted a manager."
"Then what do you want? Tell me. What can I give you?"
"It's not about what you can give me."
"Then what is it about?"
The question came out raw. Desperate.
Like he'd been holding it in for days and it had finally broken through.
I looked at him.
God, I wanted to tell him. Wanted to say it plain. That I wanted him. Not his money or his solutions or his fixes. Just him. His time. His hands building something with me instead of for me. His attention on our life instead of on the next deal.
But I'd already said it a hundred different ways and he'd never heard it.
Had said it in every dinner I'd cooked that he'd missed. Every morning I'd woken up alone in that big glass house. Every time I'd tried to tell him about my day and watched his eyes go to his phone.
I'd said it by leaving my ring on his desk.
And he still didn't understand.
So I didn't say anything.
He took a step closer.
The dock boards creaked under his weight. He was close enough now that I could see the red in his eyes. The stubble on his jaw. The way his hands were shaking.
"Tell me what to do," he said. "Tell me how to fix this. I'll do anything, Etta. Just tell me what you need. Do you want me to step back from Scandinavia? I can hand it off to someone else. Do you want me to work from home more? I can do that. Just tell me what you want and I'll do it."
I shook my head.
"You keep asking me that," I said quietly. "Like if I just explained it right, you'd finally get it. Like there's some magic answer I haven't told you yet. But I can't want it for you, Sven. I can't make you see it."
"See what?"
His voice broke on it.
"What am I not seeing? Tell me. Please."
I looked at him.
At this man who'd offered me everything he could think of and still had no idea what was missing.
"It doesn't matter," I said.
"It does matter. Etta, please. Don't walk away from this. Don't walk away from us."
"I'm not walking away. I already left."
"Then come back. Just come back and we'll figure it out. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out together."
"I have to get back to work."
I turned toward the shucking house.
"Keep the cruise," he said behind me. "Please. Even if you don't want to go with me, you could take Yolanda. Or go by yourself. You could use the time. Just—don't throw it away."
I stopped.
The ticket was still sitting on the shelf in the room upstairs. I'd looked at it once, the morning the PDF had come through from Deshawn's office, and then I'd printed it and put it up there and hadn't touched it since.
Hadn't thrown it away.
Hadn't looked at the itinerary.
Hadn't imagined myself on it.
It was just a piece of paper on a shelf. Fifteen thousand dollars printed on printer paper. Departure the twenty-seventh. Return the seventh. Balcony cabin, Deck Seven.
Going somewhere.
I didn't turn around.
"Okay," I said.
Not because I was going to use it. Not because I was going to take Yolanda or go by myself or do anything at all with it.
But because it wasn't worth carrying back to him.
Because it was just one more thing he'd bought that he thought could fix what was broken.
One more expensive gesture that missed the point entirely.
"Etta."
I looked back.
He was standing there with the jewelry box in his hand again. He'd taken it back out of his pocket without thinking. Just holding it like he didn't know what else to do with it.
The sun was coming up behind him now. The light turning gold on the water. Making him into a silhouette.
"I love you," he said.
His voice broke on it.
I felt my own chest break a little more.
"I know," I said.
And I did know. That was the worst part.
Every single thing he'd brought me this morning, he'd brought in love.
The work question he didn't know was an insult.
The inclusion he thought was honoring me.
The scheduled weekend he actually believed would fix us.
The manager meant to free me from something I'd never wanted to be free from.
The cruise he'd paid for without knowing where it went. The necklace someone else had chosen.
All of it wrong.
All of it offered with his whole heart.
That was what I couldn't stand. Not that he'd failed. But that he'd tried so hard and failed anyway.
That this was his best. That he'd come here at first light with everything he had and it still wasn't what I needed.
I couldn't stand there anymore. Couldn't look at him and not break completely.
"I have to go," I said.
"When can I see you again?"
The question was so small. So desperate.
I wanted to give him an answer. Wanted to tell him a time, a day, something he could hold onto.
But I didn't have one.
"I don't know."
"Tomorrow? Could I come back tomorrow?"
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Then when? Next week? Just give me a day, Etta. Any day."
"I don't know, Sven."
His face went still.
I turned away before I could see what happened to it next.
I walked to the shucking house and went inside and closed the door.
It was mine outright. He'd never had a key to it and it had never occurred to him to want one.