8. Wilson
— ? —
Wilson
“Give me the frame, Sabrina.”
“In a minute.” She tilts it toward the light and studies Izzy’s face like it’s a painting she’s thinking about buying. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you happy. Ten months of meetings and this is the first time, and it’s a photo.”
“The frame.”
She doesn’t give it to me. She holds it against her chest and looks around the lobby instead, at the guard pretending to read his clipboard, at the papers all over the floor, at the piece of broken glass Izzy walked over without even slowing down.
“She left you on the floor.” She says it gently, like she’s breaking bad news to me. “In front of a security guard. I would never do that to you, Wilson. I want you to notice that, because you’ve spent a whole year not noticing anything I do.”
“I noticed.” I get all the way up. My knee complains about it. “I noticed in Tokyo.”
Something in her face shifts. Just a little, but I see it.
The night of the meeting. Two hours before that intern filmed us through the window, she knocked on my hotel room door with two glasses and a bottle from her father’s cellar. I stood there in my socks and told her to go back to her room.
She laughed at first. She thought I was just being careful.
Then she stopped laughing, and her face did exactly what it’s doing right now.
“You were tired,” she says. “You’d been in that room for eleven hours. I didn’t take it personally.”
“Take it personally.” I hold out my hand for the frame.
“I’m married, Sabrina. I was married at that door and I’m married on this floor, and the answer isn’t going to change.
Not tonight. Not when the papers get signed.
Not ever. I need you to actually hear me this time, because I don’t think you have. ”
She hears me. I watch it land, and I watch her decide what she’s going to do about it.
Then the soft look just goes away. Like she switched it off.
“You should be careful how you say no to people, Wilson.” She puts the frame in my hand, and one of her nails taps the cracked glass. “Some of us listen very closely.”
She walks out through the same doors Izzy walked out of, not in any hurry at all, and the guard finally looks up from his clipboard.
Isaac said it on the plane. She’s doing this because I wouldn’t give her what she wanted.
I told him nothing happened. That was true. I just never said nothing was asked.
I should have told Izzy about the hotel door.
I told her Sabrina was a kid who kisses everyone hello, because that was easier to say into a phone at five in the morning.
And because some part of me figured a woman showing up at my hotel room said something about me, and I didn’t want to find out what Izzy thought it said.
So that goes on the list too. The list is getting really long.
***
The penthouse is dark and I don’t bother turning on the lights.
I set the frame on the coffee table, face up, glass cracked but still holding together somehow. Izzy laughs at me through the crack.
The scotch is eighteen years old, a bottle I’d been saving for the day the deal closed. I pour three fingers into a crystal glass and drink it standing at the window, watching the city glitter below me.
All those lit windows, all those people going home to wives who still love them, climbing into beds that aren’t empty.
The glass is empty before I notice I’ve drained it. I pour another.
Izzy’s face when Sabrina said personally. Izzy’s voice tearing apart in that lobby. Izzy walking away and not looking back.
I carry my drink to the study and sink into the leather chair. The room smells of dust and old paper, and underneath it, barely, her perfume.
A legal pad sits on the desk. I pick up a pen and stare at the blank yellow page.
Figure out why you keep breaking it.
Helena’s words won’t leave me alone. Maybe the answer shows up if I write it down. Maybe seeing it in my own handwriting will make it real.
I start writing.
Year one. Her birthday. Denver.
That’s all it takes. The conference room comes back around me, snow piling on the windowsill, my phone buzzing with a text from my assistant.
Linda: Flowers delivered to Mrs. Carter. Card signed per your instructions.
I typed back a thumbs up and went back to the meeting.
That night I called her from the hotel bar. “Did you get the flowers?”
“They’re beautiful.” Her voice came through thin. “Thank you.”
“I’ll make it up to you when I’m back.” I waved at the bartender for another. “We’ll do a proper dinner.”
“Okay.” A pause opened up. “How’s the deal going?”
I talked for twenty minutes about the deal. When I finally stopped, the line was quiet.
“Izzy? You there?”
“I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “Just tired. I should sleep.”
“Happy birthday, baby.”
“Thanks, Wilson.”
She hung up first. I ordered another drink and told myself she understood.
The scotch beside me has gone warm. I drink it anyway and write the next line.
Year two. The anniversary dinner.
She’d made the reservation months ahead, her favorite restaurant. I was supposed to fly in that morning. The meeting ran long, then there was a dinner I couldn’t skip, and then, I called her from the car to the airport. Voicemail.
“Hey, it’s me. I’m not going to make the flight. I’ll be on the first one tomorrow, I promise. Don’t wait up. I love you.”
She told me the next morning that she’d waited at the table an hour anyway. She said it lightly, over coffee, the way you’d mention weather. She’d ordered an appetizer she didn’t eat, just to have a reason to be sitting there.
“We’ll have the leftovers tonight,” she said. “Be home by seven?”
“I’ll be there.”
I walked in at nine-thirty. She was asleep on the couch with the TV on, and the containers sat in the fridge, untouched.
My handwriting is getting worse with every line. I press the pen harder and keep going.
Year three. Christmas. Singapore.
A deal that absolutely could not wait, except it could have, except the truth was easier to avoid from that far away.
I called her on my Christmas morning, her Christmas night.
“Merry Christmas, baby.” I was still in my suit, looking out at a city that doesn’t do the holiday.
“Merry Christmas.” Her voice came out soft. Tired. “Mom says hi.”
“Tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”
A long pause. “She knows, Wilson. She’s used to it by now.”
“Is the tree nice this year?” I loosened my tie one-handed. “Did you hang the ornaments from our first tree?”
“There’s no tree.” She said it quietly, like it didn’t matter anymore. “I didn’t see the point.”
My hand stopped on the tie. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m at my mother’s on Christmas and my husband is on the other side of the world and I didn’t feel like decorating an empty apartment for no one.” Her voice cracked once. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
“Izzy, that’s not…”
“I’m going to go now.” She cut me off, but there was no anger in it. Just exhaustion. “I love you. I’ll see you when you get back.”
Dead air. I sat on the edge of the hotel bed and stared at the phone. I should have called back. I should have booked a flight.
I opened my laptop and finished the morning’s presentation instead.
The page is full on both sides now. I flip to a fresh one and my pen just hovers there, because I know what comes next.
Year four. The hospital.
I don’t need to write it down. That memory doesn’t need any help.
It was two in the morning in London and my phone buzzed on the nightstand. I was already awake, going over some work thing that felt so important at the time. Izzy’s name lit up the screen and I answered without even putting the laptop down.
“Izzy, I’m in the middle of a brief. Can I call you back?”
“Wilson.” Her voice was small and shaky, like she’d been crying. “I’m at the hospital. There was some bleeding and they want to run tests and I just… I need you right now, okay? I’m really scared.”
“Okay. Okay, listen.” I was already looking back at the screen. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll call you right back. Twenty minutes, I promise.”
I finished what I was working on. Then I started the next one because I was already in the zone. I fell asleep at the desk with the phone face-down under my hand.
When I woke up it was morning.
I hadn’t called her back. My wife was alone in a hospital and I fell asleep.
I called her from the car.
“Izzy? What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice sounded different. Flat. Empty. Whatever was there last night was gone now. “False alarm. Everything’s normal.”
“God, Izzy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was going to call and then I just…”
“I waited up all night.” Her voice cracked. “I sat in that hospital room by myself waiting for you to call back and you never did.”
“I know. I know, and I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have gotten on a plane the second you called.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “You should have.”
“Do you want me to come home? I can leave right now. I can be there tonight.”
She was quiet for a moment. I could hear her breathing, trying to hold it together.
“I want you to want to come home.” Her voice was small. “I don’t want to have to ask you to choose me, Wilson. I want you to just do it.”
“I do choose you. Izzy, I’m booking a flight right now, I’ll…”
“You say that.” She was crying now, I could hear it. “You always say that. And then a call comes in and I’m by myself again and I keep telling myself it’s fine because you’re doing this for us, but I was so scared last night. I was so scared and I needed you and you weren’t there.”
That one landed somewhere deep.
“Izzy, please…”
“I don’t want to do this alone anymore.” Her voice broke completely. “I’m tired of being strong by myself. I need my husband. I need you to actually be here.”
There was a long pause. I could hear her trying to pull herself together on the other end.
“I have to go,” she finally said. “They need the room.”
“Izzy, wait. I love you. I’m going to…”
“I love you too.” Her voice was quiet now. Tired. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up before I could tell her I was coming home.