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That meant something.
Desperate as she was, she couldn’t let it go.
“Winston, I saw you. You weren’t fine. A fine guy doesn’t put his chin to his chest and hold his head. He just doesn’t.”
He stared at her, silent as always.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” She might have fallen on her knees in front of him if not for that box in the way. He was hurting. She knew he was. He had to be.
“I do talk to you.”
“You said you’d be honest if I asked a question,” she remembered, fighting for their lives now.
“That’s right.”
“So why were you all bent over, holding your head in your hands?”
“I was trying to think.”
The words said nothing. And yet they felt important enough that everything in her slowed. Focused. Was he, contrary to what he was telling everyone, having memory problems?
“About what?”
“How to get us out of this entanglement and get you happy.”
He wanted her happy. Relief was like fine wine, making her feel bubbly inside. Her Winston was still there. Caring.
“By entanglement, do you mean the current situation? Where we’re having to wait for time to help us heal?”
He shrugged.
Or did he mean entanglement as in marriage? She’d been trying for almost two months to keep his divorce comment at bay. To not let it play with her.
And yet there it was. Front and center.
She couldn’t voice it. Wouldn’t give whatever evil had a hold of him that much credit. Or let it know how much she was growing to fear it.
“Did you come up with any ideas?” she asked, trying not to stare at that box. And needing to
know what he’d been planning to do with his things.
“No,” he said, his voice sounding almost deflated. “I’m sorry, Emily. I... The way isn’t clear. Or easy.”
She did fall to her knees then. Right at his feet. “I think that’s the job of the ‘giving it time’ part of this,” she told him. “Sometimes you just have to take it day by day and wait for clarity to present itself. Trust that it will.”
Lifting a hand, almost as though he was going to run it through her hair, he let it fall to the top of the folder on his desk. “Is that what you’re doing? Waiting for clarity?”
“I’m trusting, Winston, that’s what I’m doing.” But even as she said the words, another shard of fear shot through her.
What was she trusting? Him? Them? Two months ago, there wouldn’t have been a question. But now... Was she still trusting in them, or really just trusting that clarity would come?
Because if what she was trusting was that answers would become clear, there was no guarantee that those answers would contain any way for them to find each other again.
She still wasn’t going to consider divorce. Not unless he just went out and did it without her. But the idea of living the rest of their lives in this endless emotional void...
And with a child coming. Could she, in any fairness, do that?
Thinking of the Winston their folks had been seeing these past weeks, she actually entertained the thought that they could pull it off. Stay together, as things were, and raise a child in a loving environment.
