Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Present Day
E sme wasn’t there when Victor got up. Staggeringly, this was the second time it had happened since they’d begun their trip.
That first morning had found Victor with his head thudding and his mouth dry from a hangover. But this time, he was stone-cold sober, staring dully at the bed she’d made back up before apparently packing up her things and leaving the hotel room. Where had she gone? And how long ago? This time, she didn’t have another hotel room to go to unless she’d stumbled through the bleary night and grabbed another room from another hotel.
Victor cursed his deep slumber. He cursed the fact that he hadn’t seen this coming. She’d told him to stop manipulating her. She’d shown herself to be soft, frightened, and angry with him and their shared past. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. They hadn’t even touched the truly heinous parts of their story yet.
Victor should have sat down and apologized on the spot. Instead, he’d just gone to bed like a fool.
Victor Sutton. Harvard Graduate. Fool.
Victor removed his phone from the charger to find missed messages from Bree and zero from Esme. He dialed Esme’s number, and it rang and rang and rang. It was only six thirty in the morning. Was she asleep somewhere? He checked to see that he still had the keys to the rental van. It meant she couldn’t have gone far.
Unless she’d gotten away from him some other way.
Disheartened and exhausted, Victor brewed himself a cup of coffee and gazed out from the hotel window at the parking lot below. The clouds were low, and it was raining. Not a single soul was out there, strolling around.
He tried Esme’s phone again. This time, it didn’t ring at all. Does it mean she’s blocked me?
He thought it probably did.
Victor packed up his stuff but kept it in the room. It occurred to him that Esme had had an emergency and gone to the hospital instead of waking him up. You’re not my husband anymore, he imagined her saying. You don’t owe me anything.
Victor waited behind a married couple who were checking out of their room. The concierge was asking them questions about their cross-country road trip.
“We wanted to see everything together,” the wife explained. “We never know how much time we have left.”
“That’s true for all of us,” the concierge said.
But when the married couple turned away and left the hotel, the concierge turned an angry eye to Victor. Victor felt as if he was a middle schooler in trouble for getting into a stupid fight in the lunchroom.
“Checking out, sir?”
Victor cleared his throat. “My, um, the woman I was traveling with left at some point this morning. I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. Did you happen to see her? Do you know where she went?”
Victor stewed in shame.
“I saw her,” the concierge said. “She left at five thirty this morning.”
Victor raised his eyebrows. “She mentioned she wanted to leave early,” he lied. “Did she happen to say where she was off to?”
The concierge raised his left eyebrow. It seemed he knew Esme had run out on Victor. But he doesn’t know everything. Esme didn’t tell him everything. Or did she?
Esme had never been so keen on airing out her dirty laundry with strangers. She’d hardly ever shared with him what was going on emotionally because I didn’t care. Or maybe because my emotions were always so all over the place that she wasn’t sure how I would react.
“She didn’t say,” the concierge said.
Victor bowed his head and heard himself ramble. “It’s just that we’re supposed to drive that rental moving van all the way back to Nantucket.” He flailed his hand toward the window, where you could just make out the top of the van.
“Was she the one driving?”
“No,” Victor stuttered.
“Then what’s the problem?” the concierge asked.
Victor imagined that behind that desk, the concierge saw plenty of women in terrible relationships. He saw them doing everything they could for the men in their lives who didn’t appreciate them. He watched helplessly as they tiptoed around their husbands’ feelings and tended to their children.
“By the way,” the concierge said, raising his eyebrows. “My cousin always adored you. She watched you on every talk show, followed you on social media, and parroted everything you said about family relationships and romantic relationships. Like she thought you were a genius.”
Victor didn’t know what to say to that.
“I can’t wait to tell her that her ‘genius’ got left at a hotel in the middle of nowhere,” the concierge said. “I’ll say, ‘How much can he really know about human relationships if he causes stuff like this?’”
Victor slid his tongue across his teeth. He was stunned silent.
The concierge looked really smug and pleased with himself. He turned to clack something into the keyboard at his computer.
But that was when Victor decided to surprise himself—and the concierge.
“You’d be right to say that,” Victor stammered.
The concierge turned to look at him with big eyes.
“I don’t know anything about human relationships, the mind, or the human heart. I went to Harvard University to become one of the best therapists in the country. I think instead I might be one of the worst,” Victor said. “They should revoke my license to practice.”
The concierge continued to stare at Victor. Victor was mystified that he’d said so much.
“I tried my best,” Victor said, backing up toward the elevator. He needed his things from the room. “But I’m a fallible human. My best just wasn’t good enough.”
Within fifteen minutes, Victor was behind the wheel of the rental moving van, breathing so hard and fast that he thought he might cause his own panic attack. His foot was heavy on the gas pedal, and the Rocky Mountains in the distance rippled past. Where is she? Where did she go? He was alone in the middle of the country. It was the loneliest time of his life.
Perhaps that was why Victor answered the phone without looking at who was calling first.
Perhaps he thought, at the time, that it had to be Esme. Who else could be calling him?
“Victor?” Bree’s voice rang out from the speakerphone. She sounded both exasperated and pleased.
Victor was so shocked that he stabbed his foot on the brake, swerved, and corrected himself. A car sped around him and blared its horn. You’re a menace to society, it seemed to say.
“Bree?” Victor filled his lungs.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Bree said.
Victor stuttered. Of course, it wasn’t Esme. Esme is done with me. Yesterday, Esme realized just how awful I am.
But why was Bree calling? Bree knew how horrible Victor was, too. It was part of the reason they’d gotten divorced.
“Don’t lie,” Bree said.
Victor let his shoulders drop. “Okay. Yes. I’ve been avoiding you.” His heart thudded in his ears. “And I’m really sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry?” Bree sounded surprised.
“Yes?”
“You never say you’re sorry,” Bree said.
Victor scrunched up his face. “I’m driving across the country right now. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect.”
“I imagine being canceled so publicly helps,” Bree said.
“It didn’t do much for my ego.”
“Thank goodness for that.” Bree laughed gently.
Victor felt a shot of electricity down his spine. He abstractly remembered that he’d once believed Bree had spoken to several journalists and thus been a part of that “public shaming” from earlier this year. But right now, he didn’t care about that. Right now, he felt it was deserved.
He thought, This was the woman I left my family for. This was the woman I fell in love with and stayed with for many years.
He searched his heart for some semblance of love for her. But all he found were shadows of the arguments they’d had, the volatile words they’d spewed, the decision that they couldn’t stand one another anymore and had to move on.
Were all therapists really bad at marriage? he wondered. It stood to reason, he supposed. Therapists constantly faced the devastating truths about humanity. Maybe that made them more forgiving of their more heinous traits. Perhaps that made them more heinous to the ones they loved the most.
Is Bree also a victim of my arrogance?
“Where are you right now?” Bree asked.
“I’m about to leave Colorado,” he said.
“Wow. It’s beautiful out there.”
“Right now, it feels like a lot of nothing,” Victor said.
He did not say, My first wife left me alone in a hotel room. Bree would have probably hung up.
“When do you think you’ll make it out East?” Bree asked.
Victor’s heart hammered. He’d wanted to make good time. Now, he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to come home.
“I’ll be there in five days,” he said. “Give or take.”
“I know how you like to make good time.”
Victor chortled. “I’m trying to enjoy the ride.”
Bree laughed. “I wish you luck on that.” She paused. “Come by the house when you get a chance. I’ll be here.”
Victor was surprised. After he’d packed up his stuff and left the home they’d shared for decades, he’d looked around the living room, office, back porch, and bedroom and thought, This is the last time I’ll see any of it. He’d said goodbye.
Why did Bree want him to come back?
“Is everything all right?” Victor asked.
“I just need to run something past you,” Bree explained. “But I can’t do it over the phone.”
Victor felt something cold and hard drop into his stomach. “I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he promised.
“Great.” Bree breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief.
Victor was quiet for a moment. He tried to picture Bree in their old kitchen, maybe wearing that silk robe he’d bought her for her fortieth. Maybe eating toast with hummus. He’d thought she was already seeing someone. He’d thought she’d already fallen head over heels in love.
Nobody wants to be forgotten, he thought. Least of all me.
“Bree?” Victor said before he hung up.
“Yeah?”
“I really am sorry,” he said.
There was a slight twinge of something to her voice. Something like a sob. “I know you are,” she said. “I’m sorry, too.”
She cut the call after that.