Chapter 6 Blind Spots
Colt
I buy sunflowers Monday morning because the silence between us has followed me all the way to work.
I know something is wrong. I could ask her. Instead, I stop at the florist.
Sunflowers are her favorite, and flowers are easier than admitting I don’t know how to reach my own wife anymore. They let me say I’m sorry without having to name exactly what I’m sorry for.
I stand at the counter with the card for too long before I finally write:
I know I’ve been gone, even when I was right beside you. I miss you. I love you. I’ll do better.
Colt
Summer is at the island. Laptop open. Coffee in both hands. Writing posture.
I set the sunflowers on the counter.
She looks at them. Looks at me. Her face cycles through too fast for me to track. Surprise. Something soft. Something sharp. Then nothing.
"They're beautiful." Her voice is even. "Thank you."
"I know I've been absent. Tidewater has been eating me alive. But I'm going to be more present. I want to be more present."
She nods. Takes the sunflowers. Puts them in water. The blue mason jar from the farmers' market.
"I appreciate that."
That's it. Three words. No volley. No banter. No more present? Does that mean you'll actually eat dinner at the table instead of standing over the sink reading emails? No push.
She goes back to her laptop.
I stand in the kitchen with my keys in my hand.
Something didn't take like I wanted it to.
The flowers were right. The card was right.
The intention was right. But she's not warming up like she used to.
She used to bury her face in the sunflowers and tell me I was a sap and kiss me with petals between us.
She's not doing that today.
I tell myself it's the timing. We had a rough couple weeks. The flowers will work. Give her a day. Give her the weekend. We'll be back to normal by Monday.
"I love you," I say.
"I love you too."
She doesn't look up.
***
I head to my father's office at eleven.
My father is squaring a stack of papers when I walk in. He aligns them with the edge of the leather blotter. Once. Twice. Sets the stack down.
"Cheyenne pulled an all-nighter on the Calloway revisions."
"She works hard."
"Harder than anyone in this building." He adjusts the angle of his pen. Looks at me. "Including you."
My father's pale eyes do their thing. I sit very still.
"She mentioned you two stayed late on Saturday."
The Saturday I didn't stay late on. Saturday was the night I took a client call for an hour and went home. Cheyenne was there. We were working. But that's not what she told my father. She told him we stayed late together. She made it sound like a partnership. A shared sacrifice.
I open my mouth to correct him. I don't.
Correcting him would mean explaining what I actually did on Saturday, and what I actually did on Saturday was leave Cheyenne in the office while I went home to a wife who was already asleep on the couch by the time I got there.
Admitting that doesn't reflect well on me either.
So I let his version stand, and my father lets his version sit between us.
"We're ready for the pitch," I say.
"That's what I like to hear." He nods. The approval nod. Something that's been clenched since I sat down lets go. "Close Tidewater and we have the conversation. The big one."
CEO.
I leave the office and I'm humming. Not literally. Internally. The pleasure of being praised by my father is a drug I have been chasing my entire life and it has never disappointed when I finally get a hit.
***
I'm still at the office at eight thirty.
Cheyenne is on the couch in my office and we are pretending to work.
Everyone else cleared out an hour ago. The building has the after-hours quiet where the lights are dimmer and every conversation takes on a gravity it wouldn't carry at noon.
Cheyenne has her shoes off, laptop on her knees, reading glasses perched on her nose.
She wears reading glasses after hours. I didn't know that until recently.
"Can I ask you something personal?"
"You're going to whether I say yes or not."
She takes off the glasses. Looks at me. Her eyes without the lenses are lighter. More exposed.
"I worry about you."
"About me?"
"You're going to burn out, Colt. The deal, your father, the hours. You haven't slept in weeks. Someone in this building should say it."
"I'm fine."
She doesn't argue with that. She pulls her feet up under her on the couch and gets smaller and lets the silence sit. The space between us is small. Her knee almost touches mine. I can smell whatever she wears, something warm and clean, something I have gotten used to smelling in my office at night.
She leans toward me.
I lean toward her.
I don't think about it. My body is just moving.
Her face is close enough that I can see the small flecks of gold in her brown eyes and the faint shine on her bottom lip and her breath smells like the wine we shared at dinner two hours ago and her hand is on the couch cushion between us and my hand is moving toward hers and I am leaning in and she is leaning in and we are about to.
I rear back.
Hard. Fast. Like I just saw a snake in the grass. My back hits the arm of the couch and my hand pulls away from where it was reaching and Cheyenne's eyes flicker, just once, with something I can't read, and then she is upright and professional and reaching for her glasses.
What the fuck.
What the fuck did I almost just do.
I stand up. The room tilts. I cross to the window. My back to her. Both hands in my hair. My heart is doing something a married man's heart shouldn't be doing.
"Sorry." Her voice is soft. Easy. "That was. I don't know what that was. Long week."
"Yeah." My voice is wrong. I clear my throat. "Yeah. Long week."
I don't turn around for a full minute. When I do, she's at her laptop, glasses on, the picture of a colleague pulling an all-nighter. The version of her that exists during the day. The version that doesn't lean across couches.
"Page fourteen," she says. Without looking up. "It's still going to embarrass both of us if we don't fix it."
"Right. Yeah."
I sit at my desk. Across the room from her. I don't sit on the couch again.
We work for another forty minutes. We don't look directly at each other. The room has a wire in it now. We are stepping around it.
At ten thirty I tell her I'm calling it. She says good night without looking up.
***
In the elevator I press the button for the parking garage and watch the floor numbers tick down. Nothing happened. I leaned forward. She leaned forward. I pulled back. Nobody touched anybody. I read a moment wrong. I corrected it. That's all there is to it.
By the time I get to my car nothing happened. By the time I'm on the bridge home it's almost behind me.
I drive home. Summer is in bed, reading. She turns off her light when I walk in. Doesn't say goodnight.
I shower. Get into bed. She's facing away from me.
I close my eyes.
Nothing happened. I keep coming back to that. I leaned in, she leaned in, I pulled back. Nobody touched anybody. I misread a moment. People misread moments. It has been a long week.