10. Lo
— ? —
Lo
The suitcase is older than my marriage.
I pull clothes from the dresser without looking at them. The zipper will stick. It always sticks. But I’m not thinking about zippers right now.
Footsteps on the stairs.
“Lo.” His voice comes from the doorway, careful, like he’s approaching something that might bolt.
“I’m busy.”
“You’re packing.”
“Good observation. Your attention to detail is improving.” I don’t slow down.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know yet. Somewhere that isn’t here.”
“Lo, please. Just stop for a second and look at me.”
I don’t stop. I don’t look. I keep folding a flannel shirt I’ve already folded twice.
“I didn’t touch her.”
“You said that already.”
“I’m saying it again because you need to hear it. I never touched Sloane. Not once, not ever, not in Nashville, not anywhere, not at any point in the entire time she’s been my manager.”
“Okay.” I reach for another shirt.
“That’s all you have to say? Okay?”
“What do you want me to say, Jesse? That I believe you? That everything’s fine now? That we can just forget what happened in that barn?”
“I want you to look at me.”
I turn around.
He looks terrible. Pale, shaky, eyes red from crying or trying not to. His hands are hanging at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” he says. “I have never slept with her. I have never kissed her.”
“Then how does she know things? And don’t just say the phone again like that closes it.”
“It’s the only answer I have.” He says it like the admission costs him. “I handed her that password so she could answer the label while I was on stage. I never once asked myself what else it opened. I didn’t think-” He stops. “I didn’t think about what she could see.”
“Every voicemail. Every text I sent you at two in the morning.”
“I thought I was giving her my schedule. My calendar. I didn’t realize she could read everything else.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to make you understand that I didn’t tell her anything. Whatever she knows, she didn’t get it from me.” He takes a half step closer, stops when I don’t move.
“You’re asking me to believe she learned intimate details of our marriage by reading my texts instead of hearing them from you.”
“Yes. Because that could explain it.” He doesn’t look away. “I was stupid to give her that access. I didn’t think about what it meant.”
“You didn’t think. That’s the whole problem, Jesse. You never think about what things mean for me.”
“Lo-”
“I don’t know if I believe you anymore.”
The words land between us like a dropped weight.
“When did that happen?” he asks quietly.
I fold a shirt into the suitcase that doesn’t need folding. It gives my hands something to do that isn’t shaking.
“I don’t know. Sometime in the last year. Somewhere between the birthday you cut short and the anniversary you forgot entirely.”
“Those were mistakes. I know they were mistakes.” He says it fast, like speed will make me believe it.
“They weren’t mistakes, Jesse. A mistake is forgetting to pick up milk. A mistake is leaving your keys in your other pants. Forgetting your wedding anniversary isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.”
“It wasn’t a choice. I was overwhelmed. The schedule was insane. I lost track of the date.”
“You lost track of five years of marriage.” My voice doesn’t rise. That’s the part that scares me, how level it is, how done.
“That’s not fair.” His voice comes out rough.
“None of this is fair. You want to talk about fair? Fair would have been one Christmas where I didn’t eat alone while you played a casino in Vegas. Fair would have been you wearing your wedding ring instead of taking it off because Sloane said it was better for your image.”
“The ring was a work thing-”
“The ring was a marriage thing. Our marriage. The one you apparently decided wasn’t worth mentioning to the rest of the world.” I don’t look up from the suitcase. If I look at his face I’ll lose the thread of this, and I’ve waited too long to lose it now.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? Fame, attention? The terrible burden of being known as your wife?”
“From the pressure. From the scrutiny. From all the ways being in the spotlight can destroy a person.” He believes it, I think. That’s the worst part.
“I wasn’t in any spotlight, Jesse.” Now I do look at him, filling the bedroom doorway the way he always has. “I was in a barn. Mucking stalls. Mending fences. Running four hundred head of cattle by myself because my husband was too busy being a star to come home.”
“I know. I know I left you with too much.” He drags a hand down his face.
“You left me with everything. The ranch, the cattle, the books, the hands, the vet visits, the equipment repairs, the hay contracts, the property taxes - all of it. You left, and I stayed, and I handled it, because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done.”
“And I’m grateful-”
“I don’t want your gratitude.” The words come out cracked. “I wanted your presence. I wanted to look up from the kitchen sink and see you standing there. I wanted to wake up in the middle of the night and feel you next to me. I wanted a partner, Jesse. Not a poster on a billboard.”
“I’m still your partner.”
“Are you? Because partners make decisions together. Partners talk about things before they happen. Partners don’t find out from strangers that their husband has been telling the world he’s single.”
“That interview was taken out of context-”
“Then give me the context.” I zip the side of the case and start on the folded jeans. “Explain to me how ‘single as they come’ means something other than what it sounds like.”
“It was a marketing thing. The label wanted me to seem available. Accessible. It wasn’t about denying our marriage.”
“It was exactly about denying our marriage. You denied it every time you took off that ring. Every time you smiled at a camera without mentioning me. Every time you let Sloane arrange your schedule without considering whether I might want to see my own husband.”
“Sloane doesn’t control my schedule.” It’s the wrong thing to defend, and he knows it the second it’s out.
“Doesn’t she? Because all I’ve seen for a year is her controlling everything. Your time, your image, your ring. The way you look at her when you think no one’s watching.”
“I don’t look at her any way.” He won’t meet my eyes.
“You look at her like she matters. Like her opinion carries weight. Like what she thinks is more important than what I think.”
“That’s not true.” But his jaw tightens, and we both hear the lie sit down between us.
“I told you she wanted you. I told you the night you came home, lying right there in that bed. And you laughed at me, Jesse. You rolled over and went to sleep and left me staring at the ceiling wondering if I’d imagined all of it.”
“I was wrong.” Quiet. No defense behind it.
“You were worse than wrong. You made me feel crazy. You made me doubt my own instincts. And the whole time, she was making herself at home in my kitchen and talking down to me in front of your crew, and you didn’t say a word.”
“I should have said something.” He says it to the floor.
“You should have said everything. You should have told her to leave. You should have reminded her that this was my house, my kitchen, my life. Instead you just stood there and let her treat me like an obstacle.”
“I didn’t know she was doing that.”
“You didn’t want to know. There’s a difference.” I close the lid. The zipper is loud in the quiet.
“Lo-” He takes a step into the room. I take one back, and he stops.
“I’m done, Jesse.”
“Don’t say that.” Something in his face comes loose.
“I’m done waiting for you to see what’s right in front of your face. I’m done hoping that tomorrow will be different. I’m done being the wife who keeps the ranch running while her husband becomes someone she doesn’t recognize.”
“I’m still me.” It’s almost a question.
“Are you? Because the Jesse I married carved our initials in an oak tree so the whole county could see. The Jesse I married would never have told a camera he was single. The Jesse I married would never have stood in a barn while another woman announced she was carrying his child.”
“She’s not carrying my child.” The words come fast, certain.
“I don’t know that. I can’t tell what’s true in this house anymore.”
“Yes, you do. You know me. You’ve known me for nine years.” His voice catches on the number.
“I thought I knew you. I thought I knew the man who sat on my tailgate and sang me a terrible song about my eyes. But that man wouldn’t have left me alone for a year. That man wouldn’t have let someone else become more important.”
“No one is more important than you.” He crosses half the room before he catches himself.
“Then why doesn’t it feel like it? Why do I feel like I’ve been competing for your attention since the day that video went viral? Why do I feel like I lost?”
“You didn’t lose. You could never lose.”
“I feel like I’ve already lost, Jesse.” I make myself keep my voice even. “I feel like I lost you a long time ago and I’ve just been too stubborn to admit it.”
“You haven’t lost me. I’m standing in our bedroom.”
“Your body is here. But you - the real you, the one who used to be up at four with me, who used to sing in the barn while we worked - that Jesse’s been gone for months.”
“I can be him again.” He says it like a man grabbing for a rope.
“Can you? Because you’ve been promising to come home for a year. You’ve been promising things will slow down. You’ve been promising and promising, and every time I believe you, something else comes up. Another show. Another interview. Another thing that Sloane says is too important to miss.”
“I’ll fire her. Tonight. Right now.” He pulls the phone from his pocket like he’ll do it standing there.
“It’s too late for that.”
“It’s not too late-” he starts.
“It is. It’s too late for firing Sloane. It’s too late for apologies. It’s too late for promises that you’ll change.”
“What do you want me to do? Just tell me what to do.” His hands open, helpless, at his sides.
“I want you to leave me alone.”