Chapter 11 The Failed Apology
The Failed Apology
Maren
* * *
I hear his truck before I see it.
That engine has a particular sound, deep and familiar, and my body reacts before my brain catches up. My hands pause over the invoice I'm writing. My breath catches. My heart does something complicated that I don't want to examine too closely.
I told him he could bring the things I left behind. We agreed on today. I wanted my mixing bowl and the rest of my recipe cards, not an audience for an apology.
I set down my pen and cross to the window just as Jackson climbs out of his truck with an armful of flowers so enormous they obscure half his face. He sets a box marked with my name on the landing, then rearranges his grip on the vase and the wrapped package tucked under his arm.
Oh no.
He's doing the grand gesture thing. He's brought a gift as if that's what I asked for. Like gifts can fix what words and actions broke.
I watch him climb the stairs, and I think about not answering the door. I think about pretending I'm not home, letting him stand there with his ridiculous flowers until he gives up and leaves.
But Mrs. Patterson is already peering out of the hardware store window, and the last thing I need is the whole town knowing I refused to face my own husband.
I open the door before he can knock.
He looks terrible. Not sleeping-terrible, not sick-terrible, just worn down in a way I've never seen on him before. The flowers are peonies and roses and something tropical I can't identify, arranged in a crystal vase that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget.
"Can I come in?" His voice is careful. Uncertain.
Behind the flowers he looks almost like the nervous man who asked me out. I wish this were a first date. I wish all we had to worry about was whether we liked each other.
I cross my arms. "What is this?"
"I wanted to apologize." He shifts the vase higher, and a peony petal drifts to the floor. "Properly."
The door to the hardware store opens below us. Mrs. Patterson's voice floats up: "Maren, honey, do you need anything?"
I close my eyes. Small towns. No privacy. Every moment of my marriage becoming public performance.
"I'm fine, Mrs. Patterson." I step back and hold the door open. "Come in, Jackson."
He moves past me into the apartment, and I watch him take in the space. The tiny kitchen. The single chair. The cast-iron skillet on the stove that his mother gave me.
He sets the flowers on my table, pushing my invoice folder aside to make room, and hands me the wrapped package. It's heavy. Book-shaped.
I don't open it yet. I set it on the counter and wait.
"It's a cookbook." Jackson shifts his weight like he's not sure where to put himself. "A first edition. Nineteenth century. The same one you showed me at that estate sale two years ago, remember? You kept going back to look at it."
I loosen the paper enough to see the cover. At that sale, I kept returning to the book, trying to justify the price. He had been watching me from across the room. I thought he'd forgotten about it.
"I had it tracked down from a collector in London." He almost smiles at having found it. I remember being the person he couldn't wait to surprise. "It took a few weeks, but I found one in better condition than the original."
I look at the package. I think about what it must have cost, the time and money and effort to locate a rare book halfway around the world. I think about the fact that he remembered, that he paid attention, that he tried to give me something meaningful.
And then I remember calling him from the safe room and hearing his voicemail again.
"Thank you." My voice sounds flat to my own ears. "That was thoughtful."
Jackson's face lights up, and I hate that I'm about to disappoint him.
"I've been thinking about what I want to say." He takes a step toward me, then stops when I don't move. "I've been practicing, actually. I know that sounds stupid, but I wanted to get it right."
He straightens his shoulders like he's preparing to deliver a speech. Which he probably is.
"I'm sorry." He pauses where he must have paused when he rehearsed this, waiting for me to look at him. "I never meant to hurt you. What happened with Shay, I was trying to help a friend and I let it get out of hand. I didn't see what she was doing. I didn't want to see it."
I lean against the counter and listen. He's rehearsed this. I can tell by the rhythm of it, the way the sentences flow together.
"I know I let you down." He runs a hand through his hair. "The anniversary. The dinners. All of it. I got so caught up in trying to help Shay that I forgot who I was supposed to be helping first."
He pauses. This is the part where he expects me to respond.
I don't respond.
"I would give anything to go back." His voice cracks. "To answer that phone call. To be there when you needed me. I can't stop thinking about you in that safe room, alone, while I was..."
I wait for him to finish the sentence instead of letting him escape it. "While you were what?"
He flinches. "At the bar."
The paper around the cookbook crackles under my fingers. "With Shay."
"Nothing happened." The words come out fast, defensive. "I swear, Maren, I would never..."
"I know nothing happened." I push off from the counter and face him. "That's not the point."
Confusion crosses his face. "Then what..."
"You saw my name on your phone." I keep my voice steady, but something hot and sharp is building in my chest. "You saw it was me calling. And instead of answering, you decided I was probably calling to fight with you. About Shay. Again."
He opens his mouth to defend himself. I don't let him.
"Why did you assume I wanted to fight?" The words come out harder than I mean them to. "Why wasn't your first thought that something might be wrong? That I might need you?"
Jackson stares at me. I watch the rehearsed speech crumble, watch him scramble for an answer that isn't there.
"I don't know." His voice is barely above a whisper. "I didn't think..."
"No. You didn't." I gesture at the flowers, at the cookbook, at all the expensive apologies he brought. "You thought about what gifts might fix this. You didn't think about what actually went wrong."
He takes a step toward me. "Maren, please..."
"You made me into a nag in your head." The words come from somewhere deep, somewhere I didn't know was angry. "Somewhere along the way, you decided that when I called, it was probably to complain. To criticize. To make your life harder."
His face goes pale. "That's not..."
"Isn't it?" I pick up the cookbook and hold it out to him. "This is beautiful. It's thoughtful. It means you remembered something I wanted two years ago. But Jackson, I don't need you to remember what I wanted at an estate sale. I need you to answer the phone when I call."
He doesn't take the book. His hands hang at his sides like he's forgotten how to use them.
"I came to apologize." His voice is raw. "I came because I love you and I want to fix this."
"You came because you want me to forgive you." I set the cookbook on the counter and take a step back. "You want me to say it's okay. You want absolution."
He looks from me to the open space between us, where he had hoped I'd let him stand. "Is that so wrong?"
I think about the safe room. The sound of boots in the hallway. The silence of my phone after I hung up and called again and he still didn't answer.
"I'm not a priest, Jackson." I walk to the door and open it. "And I can't be purchased."
He stands beside the flowers in the middle of my tiny apartment, and he looks like I've broken something inside him.
Good. Now he knows how it feels.
"The book goes with you." I hold the door wider. "I can't accept something like that right now."
He folds the loose paper around the cookbook and picks it up. He walks past me to the door, and for a moment we're close enough that I can smell his cologne, the same one he's worn since our first date.
"I love you." He stops at the doorway with the book I wouldn't keep tucked against his side. "I know I don't deserve to say that right now, but I need you to know."
I remember him setting that plate in front of me at the barbecue, right down to the extra pickles. He knows how to look after me. I don't understand why I keep having to ask him to.
I love him too. That's the worst part. I still love him.
"Goodnight, Jackson." I don't say it back. I can't. Not yet.
He walks through the door. I close it behind him. His footsteps fade down the stairs, slow and heavy, and then I hear his truck start and pull away.
The flowers sit on my table, taking up too much space, smelling too sweet. I should throw them away. I should dump them in the trash and pretend he never came.
I carry the box of my things up from the landing first. My blue bowl is on top, wrapped carefully in a towel. I leave the flowers where they are and go back to my invoice. The numbers blur in front of me. I wipe my eyes and start over.
He wanted absolution. He wanted me to say it's okay.
It's not okay. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But he didn't argue when I told him to leave. He took the book and he went. He listened.
I pull the box closer and take out the recipe cards. He brought what I asked for. I wish he'd trusted that to be enough for one visit.