Page 3 of The First Husband


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Which was when he started to get to the truth.

“Also,” he said, far more quietly. “There may be other reasons why I’m confused.”

At least he had the courage to say that.

“There may be other reasons?” I said. “Do you want to check with your therapist first?”

He hit me with a sad look. “That isn’t helpful,” he said.

Maybe it wasn’t helpful, but it was also not entirely uncalled for. Nick ’s “therapist” wasn’t even a real therapist. He had never seen a therapist before in his life. But someone from his work had recommended that Nick meet with this woman, who was closer to a psychic, or a life counselor. Or, as she called herself on her silky blue business card, a FUTURES COUNSELOR. Meaning after hearing your stories, she told you what she saw in your future and then helped you get there, or helped you to avoid it. For, you know, $650 an hour.

This was when I realized what he was trying very hard not to tell me.

“Who is she?” I asked, but I already had a guess: Michelle Bryant, Nick ’s ex-girlfriend and college sweetheart. They had gone to Brown together, dated all four years there, and lived together for the last two of them. Then they had lived together in a picturesque carriage house in Brooklyn for two years after graduating. Michelle was a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of California, up in San Francisco. And, because neurosurgery apparently wasn’t impressive enough, she’d also become a special consultant to the FBI, in charge of studying brain patterns in children prone to violence. And did I mention she was drop-dead gorgeous? How could I blame Nick for still wanting to date her? I wanted to date her.

“It’s Michelle?” I said, less like a question than a statement.

“No! I’ve told you that you have nothing to worry about in terms of her.”

Nick forgot his sadness for just long enough to look pleased about this, like it proved something that he wasn’t leaving me for the person I’d been insecure about—but for someone else entirely.

“Does she work on The Unbowed? ”

The Unbowed was the title of Nick’s movie. He’d taken it from a William Ernest Henley poem that we loved—one of several poems that we’d framed and lined up by the refrigerator in our kitchen. The lines read, “Under the bludgeoning of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed.” In more generous moments, I had loved that he was using it for the title. This wasn’t a generous moment.

“It’s nothing like that . . .” he mumbled under his breath. Then, in case I missed it, he shook his head for emphasis: nothing at all. “She’s just a friend . . .” he said.

“Just a friend?”

He nodded. “A friend from home,” he said. “I swear to you, nothing’s happened yet.”

He looked relieved about this part too. But I couldn’t help but wonder why he thought that the fact he was leaving me for someone he hadn’t slept with yet was going to make me feel better. I couldn’t help but wonder why he thought I’d hear anything but the words he offered up accidentally. She’s from home. Meaning, home was somewhere else. Meaning, not here. With me.

“I’m so sorry, Annie,” he said. “But the truth is . . .”

Then he stopped himself. He stopped himself, like he didn’t know whether to say it. Which was when he did.

“The truth is, you’re away so much, Adams. You’re always away.”

“You’re saying, she’s only here because I’m . . . not?” I finished for him.

“I’m saying, I may be the one who’s leaving. But if we’re being honest, you’re never here anyway. I’m not sure you even want to be.”

That’s when it happened. When my heart broke open, right in my chest.

Five years. We’d been together five years. We had a life together. Wasn’t I supposed to be allowed to count on it? He had promised me I could—that I should—in the breath right after the breath where he explained that he wasn’t sure how he felt about marriage. But we, he and I, were going to be more than married. Post-married, he’d called it. What’s a piece of paper? Right then, it was something I could have held up like proof that he couldn’t just decide this. Out of nowhere.

Was this the right moment to make my other point, that he traveled almost as much as I did? It didn’t seem like it. It didn’t seem like he would be open to hearing that—to hearing anything from me. He was too busy looking down, picking at his fingernails. He was picking at the dirt caught there, not in a way that he was avoiding me, but in a way that he was actually focused on it. Focused and exhausted.

When he looked back up at me, it was with a look that said, Are we done? I knew that look, of course. I knew all of his looks. It had been five years.

I gave him a look back. Not yet, please. I need to understand this.

Hadn’t we been sitting here, right here, yesterday? We had. I had come home from the airport, exhausted, but stayed up so I could have a few minutes with Nick before he left for work. He’d made us peach French toast and I’d helped him rework the last scene of his movie. The very last shot. He had looked so happy when he figured it out, so happy with me that I had helped. He gave a huge smile and then leaned in toward me. He leaned in toward me, just yesterday, and said, You’re priceless . . . You know that?

It was a moment, less than twenty-four lousy hours before, which seemed directly antithetical to this moment. I didn’t know yet that you can always find that perfect moment right before everything shatters—which was why I said it out loud, like evidence for my side of things. The side, as I saw it at the time, of love.

“But yesterday . . .” I said, “you said I was priceless.”

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