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Her voice slams me in the chest like a medicine ball. I spin in my chair and take her in. She looks tentative and tired.
“Just fly in?”
Catherine shakes her head. “Been back since Tuesday, actually.”
Hope morphs to anger. “Right.” I turn back to face my sketch and question what the hell I was thinking.
“Eric, I know I must look like hell, but please look at me.”
I turn my head but my body remains facing away.
“I was working on a new installation, and I need your help to…” she trails off.
I see red, stand and walk to her. “Really? You vanish for ten days, don’t reply to any of my calls or texts, not even to let me know that you’re okay, then show up without one word of apology and the first thing you do is ask for my help?”
We’re standing so close I can feel the heat of her body. She has chalk on her chin that, on any other day would make me laugh. I can picture her standing, looking at whatever her project is, tapping the chalk as she thinks. I’ve seen her with every kind of ink and paint on that chin.
“I am sorry … sorry that I didn’t respond.” She inhales and closes her eyes. “I needed to fall. No, I wanted to fall, Eric. And, I knew that if I didn’t block your number, that wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have been able to break if I knew you were waiting for me.”
“How cliché. The artist who must suffer for her art.”
Catherine places a hand on my chest. Instinctively, I cover it.
“I know. I am. Or have been. I hope it’s have been. I didn’t need to break to find inspiration for a new piece.” She looks away. “Though, that happened, too.” She takes my hand in hers. “I needed to break my pattern, Eric. I needed to break away from the anger and fear that have been the driving energy for everything in my life—personal, creative, business, all of it—for twenty-one years.”
“One call. Would one text message have been so hard?”
“No. In fact, it would have been so much easier than ignoring your calls and texts. I promise you, it was a thousand times harder to not respond. I wanted to share so many things with you. But I knew by staying silent that I risked losing you for real. You may not understand, but I also knew that unless I broke, unless I shattered, we’d never make it. And, Eric, I want to make it with you. More than anything I’ve ever wanted.”
I let that sink in. I know she’s right. But I don’t know how I feel about having been used in this way.
Catherine presses my palm to her lips and kisses it. When she relaxes her grip, I wipe the chalk with my thumb.
She cracks a small smile and her eyes get glassy. “Please let me show you why I came back two days ago and didn’t tell you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the studio where we built the nest.”
18
CATHERINE
Eric drivesand doesn’t move my hand when I place it on his thigh, like I always do when we’re in the car.
Neither of us speak. I can tell he’s angry and that’s not the best attitude to have approaching this new installation-in-progress, but I couldn’t see any other way to do this.
We park and I lead him into the large open space. It’s empty except for half-a-dozen museum-style sign posts positioned in what appear to be random spots throughout the room.
I lead Eric to the first sign.
“It’s a maze with decision points that direct you to your next destination,” I say.
Eric looks from me to the chalk lines on the floor. “Twenty-one Paths,” he says.
“Reboot.”
He reads from the first card. “To take this journey, walk straight down this path to the center of the maze. To continue life as normal, walk away.”
