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“I didn’t—”
“You didn’t have to.” Maybe that’s the problem, I think. She doesn’t have to say it because I can see it, the accusations of my doing something that I haven’t done. “It was in the way you looked at me. And to answer your question, I was working, that’s where I was. It was a shit day, and I got hit with a last-minute page.”
“You said it was boring.”
“And then it turned to shit, Brandi.”
“You didn’t call.”
I didn’t and from the look on her face, I should have. “I didn’t think. I also didn’t think I had to report in every five minutes.”
She sucks in a breath and I want to apologize but the words refuse to come. I don’t want to have to spend my life placating her. After all, I have feelings too. I have things going on I need to sort out, things I have to deal with. And that makes me feel guilty all over again when I don’t have a reason to feel guilty.
“I’m your wife.”
That gets to me, I think. It really does. “Yes,” I manage to say with lips against the glass, taking a deep swallow of the amber liquid, the only warm thing it seems I’ll be getting in a while. “You are. My wife. Not my keeper. Not my mother. Shit happens. I don’t get to sit inside a warm room answering phones all day like you. My life when I’m on shift is fluid. Like the damn end to my shift. There’s no clock out when things come up. You know that. Or should. What happens when you call out a page right before the end of shift? You get to leave, and the officer you send has to stay and handle it.”
“That’s not fair.” Her voice is so small,hurt, and it cuts deep.
Because I know it isn’t fair… what I said. But knowing the truth doesn’t stop the burn of anger, doesn’t stop the resentment for having to explain myself when I shouldn’t have to.
“What isn’t fair, Brandi, is me having to come home to nagging.”
Bright spots of color flare beneath her tanned cheeks and she takes a step back, flinching against my words. “I’m not nagging you. I asked where you were.”
“No, you started accusing me of I don’t know what.” I shrug like I’m not hurt. “Like I’m a piece of shit who did something to deserve your doubt.”
Stark silence meets my words. And through it comes the hum of the fridge. She doesn’t even have the TV on in the other room, I realize. For some reason the idea of her sitting here at home, my home,ourhome, in silence waiting for me like she doesn’t exist until I walk in the door pisses me off.
That isn’t what she is doing, but that’s how it feels, like something closing down around me and squeezing tight, demanding I be something I’m not, to step up when I have no idea what I’m supposed to be stepping up to.
Why aren’t I enough?
“I didn’t,” she says, “but should I be doing that, Travis?”
I finish my Jack and set down the glass with a definitive thump on the counter. “You can do whatever you goddamn like.” I run a hand over my face. “I’m tired, Brandi.”
“Is there anything going on I should know about?”
My blood runs cold. “Excuse me?”
I sound guilty, I know that. But fuck it. I haven’t done anything at all.
Lately.
“It’s a simple question,” she says, her hands small fists now at her sides.
“No.”
“If… if we can’t talk, if you can’t even call me if you’re going to be late, then what the hell are we doing?”
It is a good question.
“I’ve no fucking idea. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a shower.”
Before I can move, she gives a small little sound that hurts my heart and sends my ice into my veins. Then she’s gone.
I am not going to go after her.
