Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
For four days, I am furious that Caleb's speech worked on me.
It did not make me forgive him. It did not erase the kiss or return my honeymoon. But when I close my eyes, I no longer see only Sable on his lap.
I see Caleb standing alone beneath the projector light, refusing every excuse people had offered him.
"Public remorse is easy," Ivy says when I confess this. "Sustained change is boring. Wait for boring."
"That sounds like something printed on a throw pillow."
"I am very wise before coffee."
The house forces us together.
Caleb wants to sell it. I need to decide whether any of the furnishings we bought jointly should come to the apartment. We agree to meet on Saturday at noon.
When I arrive, the white bows are gone from the porch. The wedding gifts have been returned or stored. The calendar remains missing from the kitchen wall.
Caleb is making coffee.
"You don't live here," I say.
"I came early to open the windows."
"Why are you selling?"
"I bought it before you, but we chose everything in it together. I don't want to live here without you."
"That sounds like pressure."
"It is an answer. You asked."
He has become maddeningly careful.
We divide dishes, linens, and the living-room furniture. Caleb gives me anything I express interest in until I accuse him of trying to make himself homeless.
"Take the sofa," he says.
"It doesn't fit in my apartment."
"Then I'll pay for storage."
"I do not want the sofa."
"You chose it."
"We chose it."
"You chose it. I wanted the gray one."
"The gray one looked like office furniture."
"It was comfortable."
"It was depressing."
"It would suit the room now."
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Caleb smiles.
The familiar expression hurts more than the videos.
"Don't," I say.
His smile disappears. "I didn't do anything."
"You made me laugh."
"I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing for everything."
"I don't know which version of me you're going to punish."
The carefulness snaps.
"Punish? You think this is punishment?"
"No. That came out wrong."
"It came out honest. You are behaving perfectly and waiting for your prize."
"You think any of this feels perfect?"
"I think the speech made you feel noble."
He puts down his coffee. "You believe I enjoyed standing in front of my mother, my employer, and everyone I know and telling them I was a selfish coward?"
"You are good in front of a crowd. You always know what to say."
"I knew what to say because it was true."
"Then why couldn't you say it to me before the wedding?"
"Because I was afraid."
"You keep expecting fear to excuse you."
"No, I expect fear to explain why I failed."
"You planned that reception without asking what it would do to me. You played the video in front of everyone again."
"I told you that you could leave."
"After I was already there."
"What do you want from me? Private apologies are manipulation. Public apologies are performance. Giving you space means I don't care. Calling means harassment. Paying what I cost you means I am buying forgiveness. Tell me how to do this right."
"I shouldn't have to teach you how to love me."
"I did love you. I do. I failed you once, horribly. That doesn't mean every day before it was a lie."
"It changed every day before it."
"Only because you keep letting three seconds swallow five years."
The line hits us both.
Caleb closes his eyes. "I shouldn't have said that."
"But you believe it."
"Sometimes? Yes. Sometimes I want to scream that I stopped. That I came home alone. That I married you because you are the only woman I want. Then I remember you never got the choice to believe me because I hid it, and I know I have no right to ask you to make it smaller."
I am crying now. "You let me walk down that aisle."
"I did."
"You watched me promise to trust you."
"Yes."
"I hate you."
"I don't hate you. I wish I did. It would be easier to leave you alone."
"Stop making everything harder."
"What do you want me to say?"
"That you hate me too. That I am making you miserable. That you wish you had chosen her. Give me something I can leave."
Caleb crosses the room.
He stops close enough that I can feel his heat but does not touch me.
"I will never give you that lie."
My hand rises to his face. His breath catches.
For one reckless instant, I intend to slap him.
Instead, I grip the back of his neck and pull his mouth to mine.
Caleb kisses me once, hard and desperate. Then he tears himself away.
"Are you sure?"
The question humiliates me.
I press my hand over his mouth.
"I will not become the woman who kisses you because she misses you and hates herself tomorrow."
He closes his eyes against my palm.
His lips touch the center of my hand. Not a kiss exactly. More like a breath that remembers how.
I jerk away.
"Do not make that tender."
"I didn't mean to."
"You always mean to. You know exactly what tenderness does to me."
"You think I am trying to seduce you?"
"I think you have spent five years learning every door into me."
"And you have spent five years learning mine. You could take me upstairs right now, let me believe we are rebuilding, and tell me tomorrow it meant nothing. I would still go."
"That is not fair."
"No. It is honest."
We stand in the middle of the house breathing too hard.
"I miss sleeping beside you," he says.
"Don't."
"I miss your feet being freezing. I miss you setting six alarms and ignoring five. I miss finding coffee cups in rooms where nobody should drink coffee."
"Stop."
"I miss my wife. I am not saying that to pressure you. I am saying it because pretending I can stand beside you and discuss sofa ownership like you are a stranger is killing me."
"You don't get to die from the distance you created."
"I know."
I grab my purse and head for the door. Caleb does not follow.
In the car, I grip the steering wheel until the leather creaks. I want to return. I want to climb into our bed, make him touch me until neither of us can speak, and wake in the morning before memory.
Instead, I scream.
The sound tears out of me, loud enough that a neighbor looks through his curtains. I scream again, beating both hands against the wheel until my palms burn.
Then Sable's photograph appears on my phone.
I take my hand away and leave.
In the parking lot, my phone vibrates.
Sable has sent me a photograph of herself sitting across from Caleb at the restaurant.
He contacted me first.