I picked up my phone again.
I watched the text.I’m sorry. I will keep being sorry. Tell me when to come home.It looked pathetic now, typed out in the middle of the night, a desperate reaching toward a woman who had given me no reason to believe she was reaching back.
I put the phone down.
I closed my eyes.
I understood that sleep was not coming. Sleep was for men who could forgive themselves. Sleep was for men who had not lied to the women they loved. Sleep was for men who deserved rest.
By the time dawn came, I would have counted approximately 14,400 seconds of waiting. I would have thought about her approximately 4,800 times. I would have looked at my phone approximately 67 times. And she would have sent no reply.
This was the architecture of penance. This was what staying meant.
21
MAPLE
Ihad read the text ninety-four times.
Mira was counting. She had been standing at the back counter of the diner for the past two hours, and every time I picked up my phone and looked at the message again, she said a number. Ninety-three. Ninety-four. Ninety-five. The running tally of my inability to decide what to do with the words Knox had sent me four days ago from a hotel room in Duluth.
I’m sorry. I will keep being sorry. Tell me when to come home.
The team had come back from the road game on Tuesday. It was now Wednesday evening, the diner was closed, and I was standing behind my counter running the glass down with a rag that I had stopped actually using for anything useful and had started using instead as a prop for looking like I was doing something while my brain sat in the corner and screamed.
Mira said, “Ninety-five. Jesus, Maple. Either reply or delete it. This is killing me.”
I said, “You’re not supposed to be counting.”
Mira said, “You asked me to count.”
I said, “I said it out loud. That doesn’t mean you were supposed to actually?—”
She said, “Maple.”
I said, “What.”
She said, “Go to the rink. See if he’s there. See what he’s doing. See if he’s still in the apartment or if he’s gone. Then decide.”
I said, “He’s at the rink. It’s Wednesday. He’s always at the rink on Wednesday.”
Mira said, “So go.”
I said, “I’m not going to the rink.”
Mira said, “Yes, you are. You’re going to close that rag over the counter, you’re going to take off your apron, and you’re going to walk out that door, and you’re going to drive to the rink and you’re going to watch him work, and then maybe you’re going to figure out whether he’s a man who deserves to come home or a man who should stay exactly where he is.”
I said, “What if he doesn’t deserve to come home.”
Mira said, “Then you’ll know. And you can stop reading the text ninety-six times and you can actually delete it and move on. But if he does deserve it, if you look at him and you understand that the thing he did was done because he loves you and not because he’s trying to own you, then maybe you can figure out how to let him back in.”
She was right.
Of course she was right.
Mira was always right, which was infuriating, which was why she was my best friend, which was why she was also the person who drove me crazy more than anyone else in the world besides Knox.
I said, “Fine. But if I do this, you’re closing up.”
