Chapter 15 The Last Conversation
Kirk is waiting outside Wildhorse City Hall on a Wednesday afternoon.
I see him from the lobby window before I walk out.
He's leaning against a car I don't recognize.
Not his truck. Something smaller. Older.
His truck must have been repossessed or sold.
He's wearing a jacket I haven't seen before and his hair is different.
Shorter. He looks thinner than the last time I saw him at the diner.
Amanda sees him too. She stands next to me at the window and crosses her arms.
"Want me to call someone?" she asks.
"No. He's not doing anything wrong. He's just standing there."
"Standing outside your workplace uninvited is absolutely doing something wrong."
"Amanda. It's fine. I'll handle it."
"I'm watching from the window."
"I know you are."
I push open the front door and walk outside. The afternoon is cool. October has arrived and the trees along Main Street are starting to turn. Orange and red and yellow. The light is different now. Lower. Warmer. The kind of light that makes everything look softer than it actually is.
Kirk sees me coming and straightens up. He puts his hands in his jacket pockets and waits for me to approach. I stop about six feet away from him. Close enough to talk. Far enough to maintain the distance I've built.
"Brook," he says.
"Kirk. What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to see you. I know I should have called first but I wasn't sure you'd answer."
"You're right. I probably wouldn't have."
He nods. He looks at the ground for a moment and then back at me. "Can we talk? Just for a few minutes. I promise I'm not here to cause trouble."
I look at him. He's different from the man I remember.
Not just physically. There's something missing from him.
That confidence. That easy charm that used to fill every room he walked into.
It's gone. Replaced by something quieter.
Smaller. He looks diminished. Not broken.
Just reduced. A man who is beginning to understand that the life he took for granted no longer exists.
"Five minutes," I say. "Right here."
"Okay." He takes a breath. "I came because I want to apologize. Not the way I did before. Not the way I did at the diner when I was still trying to convince you to come back. A real apology. One that I actually mean."
I wait. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
"I was wrong," he says. "About everything. The affair. The money. The lying. All of it. I was wrong and I knew I was wrong while I was doing it and I did it anyway because I was selfish. Because I wanted what I wanted and I didn't care who got hurt."
"Okay."
"That's not enough. I know it's not enough.
But I need you to hear me say it out loud because I spent months telling myself it wasn't that bad.
That you'd eventually understand. That it was just a rough patch and we'd get through it.
But it wasn't a rough patch. It was me choosing myself over you every single day and hoping you wouldn't notice. "
I look at him and I feel something I didn't expect.
Not anger. Not satisfaction. Sadness. A thin layer of sadness that sits on top of everything else and makes the moment feel heavy in a way that has nothing to do with Kirk specifically and everything to do with the waste of it all.
Nine years. The best years of my twenties and the beginning of my thirties.
Given to a man who just admitted out loud that he chose himself over me every single day.
"I appreciate you saying that," I tell him. "I do."
"There's more."
"Okay."
"You were always the woman I should have married.
I know that now. I knew it then too. I was just too stupid and too selfish to act on it.
You were everything I wanted and I threw it away because I couldn't stop thinking about what else might be out there.
And what was out there was nothing. Nothing compared to what I had with you. "
"Kirk."
"Let me finish. Please."
I nod.
"I've lost everything, Brook. Not just you.
Everything. The insurance agency put me on probation because word got around about Kallie and the pregnancy and they don't want the liability.
My boss called me into his office and told me that the company has a reputation to maintain and that my personal decisions have compromised it.
I'm doing half the work I used to do. Half the clients. Half the pay."
He stops and looks at me to see if I'm reacting. I'm not. I'm listening. That's all.
"My credit is destroyed. Between the settlement payments to you and the credit card debt and the car loan I fell behind on I can't qualify for anything.
I had to sell the truck. The dealership gave me four thousand less than I owed.
I'm driving my cousin's old car now. I'm living in a studio apartment on the east side and I'm behind on rent.
The landlord gave me until the end of the month. "
He pauses again. A car drives past on Main Street. Someone honks at someone else in the parking lot across the way. Normal sounds. Normal life continuing all around us while Kirk Reed stands on the sidewalk cataloguing everything he's lost.
"Kallie had the baby last month," he says. "A girl. She won't talk to me. She told her parents what I did and now her father handles all communication between us through a lawyer. I haven't held my daughter yet. I've seen one picture. Her name is Claire."
Claire. Kirk has a daughter named Claire.
The information enters my mind and settles there without producing the emotional reaction I would have expected a few months ago.
I don't feel jealous. I don't feel angry.
I feel nothing about it except a distant hope that the baby is healthy and that Kallie is getting the support she needs.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me," he says. "I'm telling you because I want you to know that I understand what happened. I understand that I caused all of it. Every piece of it. And I understand that there's nothing I can say or do that will fix it."
"You're right. There isn't."
"I know." His voice cracks slightly on the second word.
He clears his throat and looks at the ground.
"I just wanted you to hear me say it. That's all.
I needed to look you in the eye and tell you that you deserved better than what I gave you.
And I'm sorry. Not for losing you. For hurting you.
Those are two different things and I finally understand the difference. "
I stand there in front of City Hall on a cool October afternoon and I look at the man I spent nine years with.
The man who lied to me and spent my money and got another woman pregnant and tried to charm his way out of all of it.
And I see someone I used to love. Not the person he turned out to be.
The person I thought he was. The version of Kirk that I created in my mind and maintained through years of willful blindness.
That person was never real. But the love I felt for him was. And that's the part that makes me sad.
"Kirk," I say. "I'm going to say something to you and I want you to hear it."
"I'm listening."
"You didn't lose me because you got someone else pregnant.
You lost me because every single day you chose yourself instead of us.
Every time you lied about where you were.
Every time you took money from our savings.
Every time you checked your phone at dinner and told me it was a coworker asking about a policy renewal.
Every single time. You chose yourself. And you expected me to keep choosing you anyway. "
He doesn't say anything. He just stands there. His hands are still in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched and he looks old. Older than thirty-five. Old in the way that regret makes people look when they finally stop running from it.
"I don't hate you," I say. "I want you to know that.
I don't wish bad things for you. I hope you figure out your finances and I hope you're a good father to that baby and I hope you find whatever it is you were looking for when you decided I wasn't enough.
But you need to hear me when I tell you this.
There is no version of the future that includes me and you together.
Not tomorrow. Not next year. Not ever. That door is closed. "
"I know."
"Good."
"Is there anything I can do? Anything at all? Even just to make things right between us?"
"You already did it. You came here and you said you were sorry and you meant it. That's enough. That's all I needed."
He nods slowly. His eyes are wet. Kirk Reed standing in front of Wildhorse City Hall with tears in his eyes and nothing left to offer. No charm. No excuses. No plan. Just a man standing in the consequences of everything he did and everything he failed to do.
"I should go," he says.
"Yeah."
He takes a step backward. Then another. He opens the car door and stands behind it. "Brook."
"Yes?"
"You look happy. Whatever you've been doing since we ended. You look really happy."
"I am."
"Good. I'm glad." He pauses. "Goodbye, Brook."
"Goodbye, Kirk."
He gets in the car and drives away. I watch the car turn the corner at Main and Archer and disappear behind the trees.
I stand on the sidewalk for a long moment.
The October air is cool against my face.
A few leaves drift down from the elm tree near the entrance.
I can hear the muffled sound of Amanda's voice inside the lobby asking someone a question.
I can hear Roger's footsteps on the basement stairs.
The building around me is alive with the ordinary rhythm of a workday afternoon and I am standing outside of it for just a moment.
Holding still. Letting the conversation settle.