Chapter 33
“I have something for you,” Nick says, handing me a small rectangular package wrapped in bright green tissue paper. “Kira picked it out at King’s Island. And wrapped it.”
“Maybe I should open it when she’s here,” I say. “Did she have a good time?”
Did you have a good time being a family again? is what I’m really asking. I’m sure a nine-year-old had a blast at a theme park.
“She did,” he says. “She rode a roller coaster for the first time.”
“Awesome.” My voice is tight. I’m not sure how much longer we can avoid the topic at hand.
We walk down a shady one-way street, even though the clouds look a bit threatening. It was my idea. I need air. I can’t bear to be confined to another room in this apartment complex while having a tense discussion about my decisions or my future.
“For the record, I wasn’t eavesdropping on that argument with your mom,” Nick says. “I was changing my sheets,” he explains—and hey, at least he’s a man who changes his sheets—“and I heard shouting. I caught bits and pieces.”
I kick a rock down the pavement. “Can you be more specific?”
“She’s worried about you being in a relationship with a parent.” He’s being so tactful. But I think we’re beyond tact now.
“She basically called you a lech. She said that a young, childless woman would make your life easier.”
“Sam, she’s not completely off-base here. I mean, I’m not a lech. But I understand why she’s concerned. She doesn’t want her daughter to be weighed down by someone else’s choices and responsibilities.”
“No one comes into a relationship as a blank slate,” I say. “Except bearded amnesiac Bruce Wayne.” He gives a little half grin, but he doesn’t laugh this time.
“What’s the…job she mentioned?”
“An administrative assistant at a college in upstate New York,” I say. “Someone’s about to go on maternity leave during the fall semester.”
“This fall?” He stops walking. “And you never thought to mention this to me?”
“It just happened over the weekend. And I’m not even sure I want to do it. Maybe I don’t want to spend four months in upstate New York.” My teeth dig into my lower lip.
“Would it be a good step?”
“Well…maybe…probably.”
After we resume walking in silence for half a block, he says, “This is reminding me of when I have to ask Kira twenty increasingly specific questions to get one simple answer.”
“When I had no reason to stay here it would’ve made perfect sense,” I say. “But now there are all these…complicating factors.”
“So go through it logically. What are the reasons to take the position?”
“Well, pretty soon I won’t have a place to live.”
“Definitely a complicating factor,” he says.
“And if I decide to stay, it could put weird pressure on you or us. You might feel responsible for me in a way you wouldn’t otherwise.” I rub the back of my neck. “And my mom would be disappointed.”
“That’s your ‘pro’ column?” Nick shakes his head. “Every rationale is about avoiding a conflict.”
The last few years of my life have pretty much exclusively been dedicated to that, haven’t they?
“Does the thought of being on a college campus sound exciting? I’d think a super nerd genius girl would jump at the chance to audit a class or something. I thought you couldn’t wait to leave Ohio.”
I feel a few stray raindrops hit the top of my head.
“I thought I’d be leaving to start a PhD program and it would feel exciting and like my life was finally starting again. This just…isn’t the same situation.”
“Just because it’s not the perfect opportunity doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.” His face softens. “I could say the same thing about myself.”
“How dare you make a dirty dad joke right now.” I stop and let him walk a few steps ahead.
The rain is starting to mottle his hoodie.
Just looking at it reminds me of that ridiculous night at Chili’s.
How nice it felt to put on something soft and warm and dry and comforting.
How nothing about the conversation we’re having now feels that way.
I can sense him subtly steering me toward the “correct” decision. “Are you going to ask me to stay?”
He turns around and I know what he’s about to tell me.
“I can’t do that.”
“You’re allowed to want things, you know.” My voice is strained. “You can ask for what you want.”
He leans over to kiss me and he probably doesn’t even realize how much that little gesture means to me.
“I want things,” he says. “But I also don’t want you to miss out on things.”
“I don’t want to miss this,” I say, grabbing at the damp fabric of the hoodie.
“If I weren’t here,” he says, “would you want to live in Ohio? Take me out of the equation—”
“But you’re part of the equation! You’re real. You’re the fucking…I don’t know, denominator or something.” I’m staring at him hard because I don’t feel good about where this is going.
“Okay.” Nick stops under the cover of a large sycamore tree and turns to me.
“Then I’ll be very real. I’m here. And I know I’m going to be here, ten minutes from Nora, for the next nine years.
That’s my life. When you have a kid, you give up control.
You make that exchange and promise to do anything—give up anything—to make your child’s life a little bit better. ”
“I get that.”
“But you didn’t agree to that. And I’d never ask you to.
I stay here because of my daughter, but it would be selfish for me to ask you to stay here because of me.
Your mom isn’t wrong. There are hundreds of little practicalities we haven’t had to consider.
I spend holidays with my daughter. I’m going to be there on Christmas morning to watch her open her presents.
I haven’t taken a vacation for myself since Kira was born. ”
“Maybe you should!” I shout. “Maybe you should take a vacation that isn’t kid-friendly or join some shitty cover band. The world won’t stop spinning if you’re a little selfish sometimes. You have a kid. You don’t have to be a martyr.”
Nick takes a deep breath and responds calmly, and I feel even more like I’ll never understand his point of view on this.
“Someday, if you have your own little human that needs everything from you, you’ll understand that there’s not even a split second of hesitation when it comes to your needs versus theirs. ”
“Don’t they tell adults on planes to secure their own mask first before helping someone else?”
“If you think I’d be fumbling around with my mask while my kid was struggling to breathe, you don’t know me at all.”
Rain picks up around us.
“A week ago you said you wanted me to stay.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I said I’d be emotionally devastated if you left. And that’s what I need to deal with.”
“Why aren’t you fighting for me?” My face is about to crumple, I can feel it. I’m fighting it, but that’s just making the urge worse. “Ask me to stay,” I say again.
“I can’t. Because listening to your mom made me realize how fucking upset I would be if Kira was in this situation. And I wouldn’t want her to get involved with an older man with a kid and a failed marriage in the first place.”
“Well, you’re not my dad!” I’m not sure if I’m raising my voice to lash out or because the rain is getting louder. Or because it feels like he’s talking past me.
“And you’re not being rational.”
“Nothing about this is rational. I’m telling you how I’m feeling, and you’re being a fucking Spock when you’re supposed to be the…” The name won’t come to me because my head is swimming.
“Kirk.” He sighs. “We didn’t do this the right way, Sam. You said it yourself. The truth is, I can’t live with myself if I ask you to stay and you end up regretting it. I can’t be that guy.”
This has never happened to me—someone telling me exactly why they no longer want to be together.
Either I’ve been ghosted or I’ve intuited what was about to happen, surreptitiously gathered all my belongings from their apartment, and ended things myself.
Quick and sharp. Wasn’t the guillotine only supposed to hurt for half a second?
This feels more like a slow asphyxiation. Nick is still talking and I’m disassociating.
“If this is meant to be,” he’s saying, “maybe it’ll come back around.”
But I can’t imagine the circumstances where we’d find our way back to each other organically. I grip the tissue-wrapped gift in my hand. I don’t think I’ll be opening this in front of Kira.
“No,” I say, snapping out of my spiral. “Don’t do that.
Don’t leave any door open like it’s just up to fate when this is a choice you’re making.
I don’t want any lingering threads. I don’t want to be sitting there, wondering what you’re doing, thinking about calling you.
I can’t do that. I don’t want any maybes.
For the last five years, I’ve been living with a giant maybe hanging over my head.
I let myself believe you were this rock.
I can’t take a maybe from you. The only way I can move on is if you just—” I drag my finger across my throat. “Or wherever the carotid is.”
His eyes are wet, so I turn my head to look at the trunk of the sycamore tree, watching the wind blow the branches until it looks like they’re about to snap. For a minute, I wait for him to say the actual words. Turns out, he doesn’t need to. When he turns to walk away, I know it’s over.