Chapter 13 The Diner
The Diner
Maren
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Jackson's letter is in my bedside drawer.
I put it there the night it arrived, next to the velvet box with the anniversary earrings.
The earrings came home with my belongings from the lodge, then traveled with me when I packed my things and left.
I keep them with the letter now. Evidence of something I'm still trying to understand.
I read the letter once, the night it arrived. His handwriting is the same as always, the sharp J, the hurried S. The words were different. No excuses. No I never meant to. Just the truth about what he chose and why.
I decided my comfort mattered more than whatever you had to say.
I'm still angry. But I'm also something else, something that made me pick up the phone and suggest we meet at Rosie's tonight.
The bell over the door chimes. Jackson walks in wearing a shirt I've never seen before, charcoal gray with pearl snaps, probably costs more than my monthly grocery budget. He scans the room and finds me in the booth by the window.
He looks nervous. His shoulders are too straight, the way they get when he's bracing for something.
"Hey." He slides into the seat across from me, and his hands stay flat on the table like he's bracing for a verdict. "Thanks for calling."
"I got your letter." I keep my voice even and watch his shoulders tighten.
"I figured that's why you called." He meets my eyes without flinching, though I can see the effort it costs him. "I meant every word, Maren. I'm sorry I ignored those calls. I'm sorry I made you feel like an inconvenience. Will you forgive me?"
There it is. The question he put in ink, now spoken out loud across a table sticky with decades of spilled coffee. I could make him wait. I could deflect. But he asked directly, so I answer the same way.
"I heard you. I believe you're sorry." I fold my hands on the menu and hold his gaze. "But I'm not ready to forgive you yet. I need more than words on paper and one dinner."
His jaw works, and I watch him swallow whatever argument wanted to come out. He nods once, slow and heavy.
"Okay." His voice is rough. "I'll keep showing up until you are. Or until you tell me to stop."
"One dinner at a time." I tap the laminated menu in front of me, letting the subject shift. "You wore a two-hundred-dollar shirt to a diner that has sticky menus. There's a ketchup stain on this one from the Clinton administration."
Jackson looks down at himself, then back at me. "It was clean."
I try to stop looking at the way the shirt fits his shoulders. Complaining about it seems easier. "You look like you're about to negotiate a cattle merger."
"Is that a thing?" He's starting to smile. "Cattle mergers?"
I make a show of inspecting the pearl snaps. "It is now. Very serious business. Requires fancy shirts."
Karen appears at our table with her notepad. She's worked here since before I moved to town, and she's too professional to comment on the fact that she's serving dinner to the Wilders, who everyone knows aren't living together anymore.
Karen angles her notepad toward me, sparing us any questions about why we arrived separately. "What can I get you folks?"
Jackson leaves his menu open while I decide. I hand mine to Karen. "Roasted chicken. Gravy on the side. And water."
"Meatloaf for me. Mashed potatoes, green beans." Jackson hands Karen his menu without looking at it. "Thanks."
She disappears toward the kitchen. Jackson fidgets with his water glass, turning it in circles on the table.
He stops turning his water glass and looks at me properly. "You look beautiful. I should have led with that."
I'm wearing jeans and a sweater I've had for three years. "I look like I just finished inventory at the commercial kitchen."
"You look like my wife." He says it simply, without pressure, and I don't know what to do with the feeling it puts in my throat.
I still want him to remember what I offered when I called. "One hour. Public place."
"I remember." He stops fidgeting and folds his hands on the table like a kid in church. "How's the apartment?"
I think of the space I chose for myself, and the noises I didn't choose. "Small. Quiet. The radiator clanks whenever the building heat comes on."
Jackson studies the exposed pipes over our booth as if considering the competition. "Romantic."
I almost smile into my water. "Extremely. I've named it Gerald."
Jackson laughs, and the sound loosens something in my shoulders. I'd forgotten what it felt like to make him laugh. How his whole face changes.
"Do you remember our second date?" He leans forward slightly. "Not the first one. The second."
I remember. We went to the county fair because I mentioned I'd never been to one. Jackson won me a stuffed bear at the ring toss and then dropped it in a mud puddle trying to open the car door for me.
"You threw the bear in the washing machine when we got back to your place." I'm smiling now. "It came out looking like it survived a war."
"It survived. Barely." He grins. "I think I still have it somewhere in the attic."
I stop smiling long enough to look at him properly. "You kept it?"
"Of course I kept it." He says it like I've asked something strange, and his eyes hold mine across the table. "You laughed so hard you couldn't breathe. I'd never seen anyone laugh like that."
Karen brings our food. The chicken is exactly as mediocre as I expected, but the mashed potatoes are good and I'm hungrier than I realized. Jackson cuts his meatloaf into precise squares before eating it, the same way he's always done.
"You still do that." I point at his plate with my fork. "The squares."
"Do what?" He looks down. "Oh. Yeah. I don't know why."
I remember how young he looked when he told me, embarrassed to miss his father over a plate of meatloaf. "You told me once it was because your dad did it. Made everything into squares."
Jackson's fork pauses over his plate. "I don't remember telling you that."
"Our third date. You ordered meatloaf at that place in Billings and you got embarrassed when I noticed." I take a bite of my chicken. "You said your dad was a geometry teacher in his soul, even though he ranched his whole life."
"He was." Jackson sets down his fork and looks at me with an expression I can't quite read. "I can't believe you remember that."
I remember everything. That's the problem. I remember the good parts so clearly that the bad parts feel like betrayal.
"I miss you." The words come out before I can stop them. "I'm still angry. I don't know how to be married to you right now. But I miss you."
Jackson's hand moves on the table, then stops. He doesn't reach for me. "I miss you too. Every day."
We finish our food in a silence that feels different from the silences of the last few months. Less angry. More careful.
Karen brings the check. Jackson pays before I can argue, and I let him because fighting about dinner seems petty when there are bigger things to fight about.
He picks up my coat from the seat and holds it for me. "Walk you to your truck?"
I slide out of the booth and take my purse. I want those few extra minutes with him. "Okay."
The parking lot is quiet, just a few cars and the sound of crickets in the grass. My truck is parked under the streetlight at the far end. Jackson walks beside me, close enough that I catch his cologne. Same one he's always worn. My body remembers it, even when my brain is trying to keep distance.
We stop at my driver's side door. I dig my keys out of my pocket. Jackson stands with his hands in his pockets, watching me.
"Thank you for dinner." I clutch the keys. "It was nice."
His attention drops to my mouth before he brings it back to my eyes. "It was."
I unlock my truck and open the door. Jackson doesn't move closer. Doesn't push.
I keep one hand on the open door, unwilling to end the evening quite yet. "Maybe I'll call you. Sometime."
He keeps his hands in his pockets, giving me room to climb into the truck. "I'd like that. Whenever you're ready."
I climb into the truck and start the engine. Through the windshield, I can see him standing where I left him.
In my rearview mirror, he's walking to his own truck. Slow. Steady.
I drive back to my apartment with the windows down. The letter is in my drawer. The earrings are in their box.
Maybe. That's all I promised.
Right now, maybe feels like enough.
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