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“I hear you,” I mumbled.
“How are you doing, baby?” she asked. “Feeling free as a bird?”
“Kind of bored, actually,” I replied, making her laugh. “I’ll be happy to find another job.”
“And how are you doing with everything else?”
“I’m…” I paused, trying to find the right words. “I’m okay.”
“You’re always okay,” she replied. “But how are you really?”
“Mom, really.” I scratched at my jaw. “I’m doing okay. Worried about Sarai, but fine otherwise.”
“You can talk to me, you know,” she said gently.
“I know that.”
“Or your brother. You know you can talk to him.”
“I know.”
“Or your dad,” she said hopefully.
“Mom,” I replied. “Stop—I get it.”
“Well, I’m just saying,” she muttered in exasperation.
“I know what you’re saying. Thank you, but I’m fine.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and I promised her that I’d let her know what we decided to do after I’d talked to Sarai. She was worried, for Sarai and for me. I knew she hated being so far away and was really excited for us to move closer, but she was doubtful that Sarai would agree to the move when she still had months of school left. She hadn’t seen my wife lately, though. She had no idea how little Sarai cared about anything.
I dropped my head against the back of the couch and sighed. I’d lied to my mom. Of course I wasn’t fine. How could anyone be fine after what we’d gone through? I was fucking devastated. I replayed the scene of the crash over and over, trying to figure out if I could’ve done something differently. If I’d volunteered to drive Hailey’s car, then Sarai would’ve been safe in my truck. If I’d backed into the road first, maybe I could’ve blocked Sean from hitting them.
There were a thousand scenarios that didn’t end with Sarai losing our baby, and that killed me because I couldn’t change a goddamn thing. And now I was terrified that I would lose Sarai, too.
* * *
“Are you hungry?” I asked the next morning as Sarai came out of our room ready for work. “I can make you something real quick.”
“No thank you,” she said, setting her laptop bag on the table. The sight of it reminded me of what I’d found last night, and I glanced at the clock to see how much time I had.
“I want to run something past you,” I said. I waited for her to look at me before continuing. It was frustrating as hell when I couldn’t tell if she was paying attention or not. “I think we should move.”
“To where?” she asked.
“I think we should move to Oregon.”
Sarai scoffed.
“Sarai,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You’re falling behind at school.”
“What?”
“I read your emails.”
“You got on my laptop?” she asked. She was irritated, but the normal anger I would have encountered for the breach of privacy just wasn’t there. Her lack of real emotion grated.
“Yes,” I snapped. I knew she was struggling and depressed, but the apathy was hard to endure day after day. “I looked in your emails, and you’re going to fucking fail if you don’t ask for a leave of absence or something.”
Sarai rolled her eyes, and for a split second she looked like the woman I’d married.
“Do you want to completely fail out of that program?” I asked in disbelief.
“You worry about you,” she replied dully. “I’ll worry about me.”
“Goddamn it, Sarai,” I sighed.
“Don’t swear at me,” she replied forcefully. My eyes widened in surprise.
“Then get your head out of your ass,” I said, trying my best to provoke her.
“My head is in my ass?” she shot back. My heart raced as she took a step forward. “I’m sorry that you don’t seem to feel anything, but I’m having a harder time with all this.”
“Me?” I replied dubiously. “You’re the one who walks around here like you don’t care about a goddamn thing.”
“I care,” she argued.
“Really? Because from what I can see, you’ve completely given up since the accident.”
“Don’t you talk to me about the accident,” she spat.
“Why, because I didn’t get hurt?” I asked. “Do you have any idea what it was like, trying to get to you? Having to watch it all?”
“I’m sure it was much harder than living it,” she replied sarcastically.
“If we hadn’t gone to rescue your fucking friend, none of this would have happened,” I blurted.
“If your friend wasn’t psychotic, I wouldn’t have had to rescue her!” she yelled back.
“He’s not my friend. He’s a guy I worked with.”
“I told you that there was something wrong with him,” she said. She was shaking, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I told you that something was going on, and you acted like I was crazy.”
She was right. I’d brushed off her worry when she’d tried to tell me that something was wrong with her friend. I hadn’t taken it seriously. We’d known that Sean was an asshole, but that hadn’t necessarily meant that the guy was abusive. I couldn’t have predicted how crazy he would turn out to be.
