37. Kendall
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Kendall
NOW
“You know, if you guys moved out here, we could be doing this, like, every weekend.”
I smirk. “Mimosas and avocado toast every weekend? You don’t think you’d get tired of it?”
Sylvia firmly shakes her head. “Never.”
She clinks her champagne flute to mine, shielding her eyes from the sun gracing its presence after hiding behind a curtain of clouds. We left the girls with James and Tommy and decided we’d spoil ourselves with a little girl time—adult girl time—while we have the chance.
“So you talked to James?” she inquires, hiding behind the lip of her glass to mask her eagerness. But I know her inquiry is out of concern and far from the reaches of gossip.
“We…talked.” A tilt of a smile only to stow away the other things we did besides talk.
“And are you two okay?”
Okay. It’s such an ambiguous word. If said correctly, it can ward off the nosiest of prying ears.
If said in earnest, it can mean exactly what it means.
Fine, acceptable, content, adequate. But in the grand scheme of things, okay for us right now is a new leaf.
The benchmark used in our marriage is different than most, so okay for us is extraordinary.
“I think so,” I confess.
“So you’re taking him back?”
“Back?” I repeat the word as if it’s tainted, and I don’t mean to sound miffed.
“I just mean, since he came all this way,” she starts to explain. “He did it to get you back, right?”
“I hadn’t realized he didn’t…have me.”
“Sorry,” she says softly. “I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”
“No, it’s fine,” I tell her. “Obviously we have things to work through, and he came all this way to work things out with me, but…I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“I don’t think so either.”
“Is that bad? That we can’t just have sex in your shed and be a happy couple again?”
She leans forward, ducking her head. “You had sex in our shed? The one in the backyard?”
The details of our rainy-day detour were left behind in their shed by the time Sylvia and Tommy returned home with the girls.
We didn’t say anything about what happened during the few hours they were away, but there was a palpable change between us, I know Sylvia and Tommy noticed.
They probably talked about it while getting ready for bed.
Especially after finding our frenetic appearance with my mussed-up hair and his shirt rumpled.
While we used the weather as an excuse, I don’t know if they believed us.
I can’t help the laugh bubbling up my chest. “We did.”
“You little slut,” she playfully accuses.
“But sex isn’t the answer to our problems.”
“No,” she agrees. “It helps, but it’s definitely not the solution.”
“We have so much shit to work through.” It’s a confession as much as it’s an epiphany.
I tried to mask our problems with my ongoing healing journey and sex, and all it did was force me to face our problems head-on unprepared.
“And I ran here the first chance I got. My kids ran off on their summer break and I booked the first flight out of San Diego. I’m such a shitty person. ”
“You needed space.” I’ve buried my forehead into my palm, rubbing my fingers into my temples, and Sylvia reaches across the table for my hand. “It’s not a bad thing you came out here to clear your head.”
“But I ran.”
“And do you regret it?”
“I don’t think so.” I look at her, her silhouette a blurry outline.
“I needed that space from my husband, and a part of me is scared to go back home. When I do, our problems are going to be the first thing that greets me when I walk through the door. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
What if it doesn’t go away? What if I have this urge to run again? ”
“So you take your time,” she says, offering an encouraging squeeze. “Your marriage isn’t going to fix itself overnight. You take things a day at a time. I don’t think James is going to be mad about it.”
I swallow through a thick knot, though I blame it on a lone blueberry that came with the side of our french toast. We finish after one more round of mimosas and a large rectangle of coffee crumble cake we share between us and return to our day.
We go shopping, stop at a salon to get our nails done, and we shop some more.
It’s a welcomed distraction. I relish my time with Sylvia, enjoying myself for the first time in a long time with the lingering thought of James and back at the house.
By the time we make it back home, Sophia, Katy, Tommy, and James are gathered around the living room. The lights are turned off, leaving the room dim with the television on as the only source of light. We’re shushed by all four of them the second we walk through the door.
“I think we’re interrupting,” I whisper under a cupped hand in Sylvia’s direction.
She laughs, nudging me further inside to close the door behind her, and we tiptoe past the private viewing party to the kitchen.
“We should’ve just stayed out all night,” I joke once we’re alone again.
“I don’t think they would’ve even noticed if we stumbled in at the crack of dawn.”
“I would’ve noticed.” Tommy struts in the kitchen, a large empty bowl holding the remnants of popcorn kernels. He plops it on the counter before wrapping his arms around Sylvia’s waist.
“Yeah, yeah,” she brushes him off, dodging his playful pecks. “Go back to your movie.”
He swats her backside. “I’m going to order pizza for dinner. Special request from the girls.”
“All right.” Sylvia starts digging through her purse as soon as Tommy walks away. “Oh shoot. I think I forgot my phone in the car.” She walks away, no doubt moving back through the living room with stealth.
“Hey.”
I’m reaching into the fridge for a bottle of cold water when I’m interrupted by a familiar voice. I turn to see James inching his way closer to me.
“Hi.” My conversation with Sylvia left this reluctant thrum to flutter over my skin. It’s left me unsure and scared, and I don’t know how to tell James that.
“Did you have fun?”
I offer a resigned smile. “We did.”
“Sophia did too,” he informs me. He pokes a thumb over his shoulder. “She really likes to sing along to those songs.”
I push a laugh through the anxiety rattling my chest.
“Um, listen,” he starts. “I have to head back in the morning. Diane needs me in the office.”
“Oh.” That thrum turns into a violent shudder, and I can feel it in my fingertips.
“Have you decided when you want to go back home?”
I could leave tomorrow with him. I could book a flight for myself and Sophia and go back to our lives as if this little interlude never happened, but I don’t know if I’m ready to do that yet.
That’s what summer breaks are for, right?
We’re meant to use the time to get away, to recharge our batteries and pretend real life doesn’t exist back home.
So maybe I can stretch that pretense a little longer.
“Maybe another week or two.”
“Okay.”
“Is that okay?”
He nods. “Of course.”
I nod too, my gaze angled toward the ground in a diffident gesture.
“I’m glad I came here.”
I don’t expect this small extension of his thoughts. Our conversations usually end long before they’re ready to, and he’s giving me a few extra inches. Only, I didn’t realize how badly I needed it.
I step closer to him and take his hand in mine. “Me too.”
He places a tentative kiss on my forehead, and I think maybe okay isn’t too bad of a place for us.
I move gently around Sophia before pulling the covers over her a little tighter. She stirs, but with the darkness still covering the guest room, she stays asleep. I pull a sweater over my head and pad downstairs.
I catch James zipping up his duffel bag as I land on the last step and the floor creaks, announcing my presence.
“Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi.”
“You’re up early.”
“I was hoping to catch you before you leave.”
“You caught me just in time,” he informs me. “My rideshare’s going to be here in about ten minutes. I was going to wait outside.”
“I’ll wait with you.”
We step gently through the house, not wanting to wake anyone.
James already said his goodbyes to Tommy and Sylvia last night.
I did too. Or at least some variation of one while we had an audience.
Now, with nothing but a thin layer of fog and an empty neighborhood, it’s easier for us to drag out our goodbye. A real one.
“Do you have a lot going on at work?”
He shrugs. “A little. Nothing I can’t handle.”
We’re sitting on the stoop with his bag at his feet.
It feels like a lifetime ago I showed up here, shuffling up these exact steps to Sylvia’s doorstep with a wilted smile on my face and a travel-weary child in my arms. There’s a space between us that hasn’t quite gone away, wide enough for a swift breeze but narrow enough for us to close it with the smallest of altruistic gestures.
“I’ll probably book our flight back for the end of next week,” I start to say.
“Okay,” he says in that considerate tone I still can’t seem to decipher.
“Is that okay?”
“Of course.” He links his fingers in front of me. I watch as he runs his thumb over his wedding band, causing it to twirl around his knuckle. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know,” I confess, feeling silly for thinking he might be mad. But when our relationship has grown to be built around precarious conversations and baseless assumptions, I can’t help it.
A car pulls up to the curb in front of us, and the driver inside waves a hand in James’s direction. We both stand and James walks to the passenger side door, ducking his head through the open window. After a quick exchange, he meets me back at the foot of the steps.
“I just asked him to give me a minute,” he explains.
“Have a safe flight,” I tell him, unable to meet his eyes. “And text me when you land.”
He looks at me, and a shadow casts over his brow. His furrow deepens with resolve, and next thing I know, his hands are on me.
“Everything I told you,” he says, his fingers cupping my chin. “None of that’s changed.”
My lips tremble, and he smoothes it away with a soft brush against my jaw.
I don’t know how to tell him I believe him, but…
it’s me who I don’t trust. I don’t know how to let my heart be open and willing to take this heavy path of recovery.
But I want to be. I want us to figure this out, and the only way to do that is if I can figure some things out on my own. Like how to trust him and myself.
“I know that,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “I just need some time to really believe it.”
“Take your time.”
I nod. And he does the one thing I never realized could help me believe it. He kisses me. He doesn’t mean to. I can tell it isn’t his intention when he chances having an irate rideshare driver for the duration of his drive to the airport. It happens anyway.
It happens in the way any inevitable thing happens.
Like a clock ticking to midnight or a rising sun.
It’s not a matter of if, but when. I feel it in the way his tongue glides against mine.
The way he presses his hip into me, guiding me so his back is facing the one audience we have.
The hold he has on my hair, tugging at the roots as if he’s worried I might mist away into thin air, turns wretched as if he’s making painful preparations to leave me behind. Because that’s exactly what he’s doing.
“I almost lost you.”
“What?” I cry.
“I thought I was never going to get you back,” he explains. He presses his forehead to mine and releases a shaky sigh. “I knew if you wanted to leave, I had to let you go. So I was preparing to…lose you.”
“But I’m not,” I assure him. I kiss the corner of his mouth at the same time I wipe his cheek. And he does the same for me. Our tears flow like a salve instead of some harsh pernicious substance ready to wring our marriage dry.
“Yeah.” He doesn’t sound too sure, kind of like me, and I realize how it’s not just me who needs to relearn how to trust. It’s him too.
The slam of a car door jolts us, and he reluctantly lets me go. I see the driver over James’s shoulder. He rounds the backside of the car to the trunk he has popped open, a polite gesture of impatience.
“You have to go before you miss your flight.”
He bends down to pick up his bag and turns to leave, but not before giving me one last kiss. He apologizes to the driver as he hoists his bag into the trunk. He opens the car door, and before he closes the door behind him, he gives me one last somber wave goodbye.