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The next morning, her face was drawn, suffering from the same potent combination of despair and lack of sleep as me.
We lingered downstairs in the nearly deserted hotel restaurant over breakfast, but neither of us could eat. Sitting closely side-by-side, we nursed our coffees and clung to the minutes we had left.
A spike of anger straightened my spine. I couldn’t allow my ex-wife to control me any longer. “Ruby,” I ventured. “Is it possible you could move? Come to me?”
She raised tortured eyes to mine.
“I want to. Desperately. I can’t move my grandmother. Amber’s job takes her away sometimes, and Yiayia can’t be left on her own for too long. She’s got severe osteoporosis and she thinks she’s invincible. Sometimes her decision-making is not the best and the doctor said if she falls it could be really bad…”
“What else, Ruby-mine?” I watched her closely as she spoke, noting the rising panic.
“It’s really hard for me to go out and do new things, but I would try. I would go back to therapy and try for you. For us. I’d need to be much stronger, though. What if I got to you but couldn’t get back? What if something happened to my yiayia? My sister? What if something happened, and I couldn’t get home?”
She started to squirm in her seat and her eyes went glassy. Her breaths tumbled out in soft pants, while red tinged her cheeks and crept across her chest. She rolled her neck and clasped her hand over her chest.
“Ruby!” I exclaimed, surprised at the sudden escalation. I grasped the back of her neck and pulled her closer. “Breathe, koukla. Just breathe. You’re okay.”
I rubbed her back and her body slowly relaxed under my hands.
I held her hand, caressing her wrist with my thumb. “Is this what it was like for you back then?”
She laughed, the bitterness of it unexpected coming from her.
“Worse. So much worse. This is nothing. At least I can go out now. I’m good if I stick to my area. It took me six weeks of practice to work up to coming to this conference. But I got here. Back then, I could barely leave the house. I only went to Spuds.” She shrugged.
I understood then, what really stood between us. My life would always be wherever my son lived. If Ruby couldn’t move to me, how could we have a relationship?
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her face and chest a mottled red.
“It’s okay, Ruby-mine. It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”
“It’s nobody’s fault. Not really.”
There was no answer, which was the running theme for our relationship. I checked the time. “I have to go, Ruby-mine,” I whispered.
She stood up quickly and averted her face. Her back expanded with her deep inhale. I helped her with her coat, grabbed hold of her hand, and walked her outside to her car.
At the driver’s side door, I turned her into my embrace and held her tightly, protecting her as best I could from the cold. I tucked my nose into her hair and breathed her in.
“Are you sure you don’t want your cross? For Georgie,” she asked.
“Georgie has his own. You keep mine because you’ll always be a little bit mine.”
She sniffed and I held her tighter.
I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t. If we weren’t meant to be together, why did we love each other the way we did? I cupped the back of her head, pulled her body closer to mine, and remembered another time I stood in the cold to say goodbye.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. I nuzzled my chin against the side of her face. “God, I love you, always,” I whispered brokenly against her temple.
With those words, she came apart in my arms, her body buckling with her grief. I held her as the sobs wracked her small frame. I tried to be strong for her, but more than one sob escaped my throat.
“Fuck, Ruby, we can never catch a fucking break,” I snarled. I wrapped her up in my arms against the wind, imprinted the feel of her body against mine, a memory to warm me for a lifetime without her.
What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this? To fall in love with a woman I couldn’t have. Worse, what did she ever do? She lost her parents as a child, lost her grandfather, lost years of her life to agora-fucking-phobia, lost me and never moved on from that loss. Not that I’d moved on from her either, not in any way that mattered.
The truth became clear. It would be unfair to hold onto her. I had to let her go to give her a chance to build a life for herself in her bubble, one that might include marriage and babies with a man who loved her and wouldn’t leave her. I cringed at the thought, but I didn’t want her to be living a painful half-life as I did. I dropped my face to her neck and could not quell the tremor that shook me.
I held her tighter, prayed I’d get my shit in order and be in a position to come back for her. For now, though, I would let her go. She might find love, but I’d risk it to give her the chance to find happiness. Condemning her to reside with me in my self-imposed prison was no life.
I dragged my hands down her back, imagining every inch of her back under my hands. God, I prayed, please don’t let it be another ten years until I hold her again.
My resolve weakened. My heart argued that I could be like thousands of other fathers seeing their children when they could, and I knew if I didn’t leave now, I wouldn’t be able to. I stepped back and pulled her arms from around my back. Holding her hands, I brought them to my lips and kissed the backs, then turned them over and pressed a kiss into each of her palms.
Firmly, I cupped her mottled, tear-streaked face and met her damp gaze. The hope in her eyes caused the words I wished I had the strength to say to lodge in my throat. Swallowing hard against the knot, I pressed one last kiss against her trembling lips, turned, and walked briskly away.
I did not pause, and I did not look back.
If I did, I would abandon my son, and I couldn’t live with that.
