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“I plan on sleeping here tonight.”
“With as tired as you are, I think a good night's sleep in a bed is what you need.”
“I’ve been sleeping in a bed all week, and it hasn’t helped.”
“Did you have someone there to rub your back?”
Her lips parted in surprised delight. “Oh, you rub backs?”
“I do.”
“Okay, you won.”
Before I let her walk away, I kissed her once tenderly. She was dragging her feet but not fighting me as she returned with her purse, and we locked up her house. I led her to my truck and helped her get inside.
I had ordered Italian from my favorite place near my house and stopped to pick it up, leaving her inside the truck as I did so. She was yawning when I came back.
“You need to get some sleep. Have you not been sleeping at night?”
“I’ve been at the house late every night and then grading papers. I guess I just wore myself out.”
“Sounds like it.”
She seemed to perk up a bit as she looked around at my house, and I gathered plates and utensils for us. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Yes, I would love one.”
I uncorked one of my favorite Shirazes and poured us each a glass before we took a seat at the table. She put food on her plate but then pushed it around as she stared off to the side. I followed her line of vision to a picture of Cheryl and the kids.
“That’s Cheryl,” I said as if she wouldn’t have already guessed.
She nodded. “I bet she was a good wife and mother, huh?”
“She was a better mother than wife,” I finally replied, and that got her attention.
“Why wasn’t she a good wife?”
I put a forkful of pasta in my mouth and chewed. Had she forgotten that I had already told her that Cheryl had cheated on me?
“Do you remember me telling you about her wanting a divorce to be with someone else?”
She frowned. “Yeah, I do. Any idea what happened in your relationship for that to happen?”
I shrugged and then wiped my mouth. “We wanted different things. I wanted a family life. I wanted to come home to my family and relax. She wanted to go out and have fun. I let her, and I guess she started having too much fun because she started to find other things that she wanted to do that didn’t include me, or a lot of times the kids.”
“Like what things?”
I hesitated and then finally replied, “Like wine tasting class and ballroom dancing lessons.”
“Do you think that’s what the other man wanted her to do?”
I nodded and resumed eating for a moment. “I assume it was his influence on her.”
“Why do you think she stayed with you after she found out she had cancer? If she loved this other man, why didn’t she didn’t spend her last days with him?”
“I have wondered that myself. I guess she realized that I was a better provider and protector than the other man, or she didn’t love him all that much after all.”
“Wow,” Nolan stated softly.
