“Why? Did he find something?” He glances at my luggage. “He kicked you out?”
“No.”
“You’re leaving him?”
“No.”
“You’re not making sense. Look . . .” Still looming in the doorway, he drops his head. His hair is my favorite this way, tousled, ungroomed, a bit dirty. He could use a haircut, but if he were mine, I’d ask him to wait a little longer. He raises his eyes and inhales deeply. His body broadens. “I’m not going to beg any more than I already have,” he says. “But if he questions you, if he doubts you—I don’t. I want you in my life. For good.” He gestures behind me, around the hallway. “I don’t think all this—ending up in the same building when we needed each other most—was a mistake.”
It would be easy to give in to him. Not many people would walk away from fate or a man like this. I’ve made up my mind, though. I don’t think I could change it back if I wanted to. “I don’t know what’ll happen with Nathan,” I say. “But I know I can’t walk away.”
“He’s been nothing but awful to you since I’ve known you.”
“It’s complicated. If I were to start something with you now, I’d always wonder if I should’ve fought harder for my marriage.”
“I can be patient. You don’t have to give me everything today. Just say yes, and it will come.”
I shake my head. “How long would you wait?”
He opens his mouth, but stops when he realizes I’m not expecting an answer. There is no answer.
“So is this goodbye?” His grip on the doorframe relaxes. “Or see you later?”
I set my bag down to take off my Burberry coat. “It’s goodbye.”
“Jesus.” He furrows his brows. “Stop. I don’t want the coat.”
“It makes me feel worse.” I hold it out. I realize my hands are trembling. This isn’t easy. As cold as I’m being to him, there is a part of me that wants to curl up in his warmth and shut the world out for a few hours. “Please. Take it.”
With some hesitation, he accepts the coat. We’re close enough that I can see the gooey-honey flecks that lure me into his green eyes. He sighs, frustrated. “Will a grand gesture change your mind?”
I touch my collarbone and glance at the ground. Finn’s faith in us is unshakeable. I hope he finds what he’s so desperately searching for. We’ve become unusually close in so little time, and it sometimes feels as though we’ve actually known each other since those first, brief moments in the coffee shop. He’s a friend I’ll be sorry to lose. “Any girl would be—”
“Stop,” he says. “That kind of bullshit won’t help.”
“It’s not bullshit.” I stay quiet until his focus returns to me from whatever he’s mulling over. “If things were different, I’d never be able to walk away from you. Not ever. I don’t know how I got up from my chair all those years ago and left you there. Maybe it was fate that made me.”
He flinches. “Ouch.”
“And maybe it’s the reason I’m walking away now. When you find the woman who makes you happy—truly happy—you can thank me then.”
He glances between my lips and eyes. He looks unconvinced, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less. “Do you think I deserve to be happy after everything we’ve done?”
I don’t have to consider it. Finn is a lot of things, and we’ve both made mistakes, but he’s not a bad person. “Absolutely. Without question.”
“Then so do you.”
I curl my fingers over my chest as my heart skips—but not for Finn. For what’s waiting for me in my apartment. For the happiness Nathan and I have ahead of us, happiness we deserve. “I know.”
Finn takes my head in his paw-like hands and presses his lips to my forehead. We stay that way for a few seconds. Finally, he says, “I think I love you.”
I grit my teeth against the lump growing in my throat. Love can be so impractical and inconvenient. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, though, even if it comes from the wrong person. It is possible to fall in love within moments of knowing a person. It happened to me the first day Nathan and I spent together. “Thank you.”
He releases me. “If he’s ever anything less than perfect to you—”
“I will still love him,” I say and mean it. “I’m beginning to see that perfection is overrated.”
“Just know that you can always come back to me.” He smiles sadly. “Especially if you have a dark chocolate pistachio croissant.”
Our smiles are genuine, but they’re quick. His familiar soapy smell tugs at my heart. I don’t want to live without it, but I can. I will. He lifts his hand and mouths “bye” as he shuts the door.
The apartment is quiet. Ginger’s fast asleep on her dog bed in the living room. I don’t wake her, but I get on the ground to inspect her bandaged paws. On the kitchen counter, I find a note from Nathan.
2:15 p.m. gave meds/painkillers.
It’s after three. Next to it is a bag of things from the vet. I read the label of Ginger’s antibiotics. She’ll need another dose tonight. Nathan’s moved the kitchen table back from the living room, and the salad bowl I knocked over is on the drying rack. I remember my phone was next to it, so I get on my hands and knees and find it under the refrigerator.
It’s dead. I go to the bedroom and plug it into a charger. My most recent missed call is from an unknown number twenty minutes ago. I sit on the bed and listen to the voicemail.
“Hello, Mrs. Hunt. I’m calling from New York Presbyterian. We’ve been trying to get ahold of your husband about his father.” I clutch the phone as dread floods me. “Ralph’s health is declining quickly, and we’re afraid he won’t make it through the night. Please give us a call as soon as you can.”
I pull the phone way and stare at the screen. My mind goes blank. We’ve been expecting this, but it seemed like it would never really happen. It feels too soon. The phone is cold from being on the floor. I press it to my forehead and think. Nathan isn’t here. Is he already on his way? Where else could he be?
I call and speak to a nurse. “Ralph Hunt?” she repeats when I ask how he’s doing. It’s quiet except for typing in the background. “Are you a relative?”
“Daughter-in-law.”
She makes a thoughtful noise. “You should get here as soon as you can.”
“Have you reached his son? My husband?”
“Not yet,” she says. “Can you find him?”
Nathan told me last night he’d be waiting for me. He could be at work, but I can’t envision him sitting at his desk today when both Ginger and I need him. He was here an hour ago. Knowing Nathan is struggling, there’s only one other place I can think of that he might be. A place he goes for clarification, answers, and to remind himself of the important things. “I’ll get him there,” I say.
“Great. Then we’ll see you soon.”
I check to make sure I have no recent messages from Nathan, but he knows I didn’t have my phone. The only ones are from yesterday when he was looking for me.
I try his cell. After the fourth ring, I reach his voicemail. “You have reached the mailbox of six-four-six—”
His phone is on, but there’s no reason he’d be out of touch—unless he’s where I thought he’d be. The soup kitchen. When he serves food, he always turns his ringer off. I grab my phone with the charger and my purse. Ralph is alone—Nathan is alone. It’s my responsibility to bring them together. I run downstairs and into the street, flagging down the first taxi that passes.
“Where to?” the cabbie asks.
“Family-kind soup kitchen on Sixth and Fifteenth.”
I don’t even have to tell him to hustle, because he slams on the gas pedal. During the drive, I pinch the bridge of my nose and compose myself. Nathan will need me to be his rock. Since Nate’s mom moved away, he and his father have gotten much closer. This won’t come as a surprise to Nathan, but that won’t make it any less difficult.
When we arrive, I tell the driver to wait at the curb. The late afternoon is cr
isp and gray. There’s a line out front of the shelter, mostly young men and women, some with children. Through a window, I spot Nathan behind a banquet wearing an apron and a smile. If he’s happy in this moment, I don’t want to take that away—we’ve hurt each other enough recently. I have to dig deep for the strength to break his heart again, but it’s there. Out of time, I unearth it as I open the door and go inside.
THIRTY-SIX
Nathan is somehow both commanding and gentle. He cuts turkey like the head of the household, but he smiles at each young woman and child coming down the line of food.
“Nathan,” I call out, and people turn to look at me.
He squints at me, setting down his knife. “Sadie?”
“We’ve been trying to reach you.”
He comes around the bank of food and stops in front of me. “Who?”
I need to touch him as I tell him, so I fist the fabric of his apron and pull him a little closer.
A corner of his mouth quirks. “What’s going on?”
With a deep breath, I say, “It’s your dad.”
His face falls. “Why? What happened?”
“Nothing yet.” I look him in the eye. “But we need to go.”
He stares at me, but he doesn’t see me, his gaze distant. “My dad? But we—we need more time.”
I shake him by his apron, and he blinks a few times. “Now, Nathan. We need to go now.”
He nods slightly and then hard. “Yeah. Okay.” He unties the apron and tosses it on a table as we walk through the dining hall. On our way out the door, I reach up to snatch a hairnet off his head, and his static-charged hair stands on end.
He follows me to the cab idling out front. Nathan gestures me inside first, a gentleman, no matter the circumstances. I slide only as far as the middle. “New York Presbyterian.”
Nathan gets in beside me. “Go fast. My dad is . . . is . . .” He looks at me.
“He’s alive,” I say. “They don’t know how much longer, though.”
He shifts his gaze out the window. I slip my fingers between his, and he turns back to me. With our hands interlocked, he kisses my knuckles. “You’re here.”
I slide closer to my husband until I’m practically in his lap. I touch his jaw. There’s a layer of stubble from the past couple days. “I’m here.”
“I had no idea about the affair. If I had, I would’ve stopped it.”
“We don’t have to talk about that now.”
“I would’ve done everything differently.”
I tilt my head, curiosity getting the best of me. “You would’ve? Like what?”
“I should’ve come to you when I figured out the abortion. I didn’t, because I was afraid of the decision I’d have to make.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What decision?”
“You don’t want children.”
I part my lips and frown. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. I’ve been struggling with this a while, but I’ve barely said it aloud. “How do you know?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve sensed it for some time. Comments here and there. The distance in your eyes when it comes up. And that day we went back on birth control, when you were out of the room, the gynecologist told me not to worry too much. He said a lot of women who have trouble conceiving convince themselves they don’t want children.”
“I mentioned it to him,” I say, glancing at our hands in his lap. There’s no right way to tell Nate that because I might not be capable of giving him what he wants, I don’t even want to try. “I’ve been having second thoughts.”
“I thought you’d say that. This is what I was talking about in the bathroom. I won’t let you selfishly decide something this big without me.” We sit in silence for a few blocks. Our palms are clammy from clutching each other. “And that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what was wrong these past few months,” he continues. “I knew if you told me you didn’t want children at all, and I couldn’t convince you, I’d have to make the hardest decision of my life.”
From the way my chest aches, I know I understand the gravity of his decision. He’ll tell anyone I’m the love of his life. But is that enough for him if I don’t want to be a mother?
“By making the choices you have in the past without me, I couldn’t trust that you’d even count my vote.”
I squeeze his hand, not to comfort him, but because I feel like I’m floundering. “I made you feel unwanted.”
“Not unwanted—unnecessary. And I shouldn’t have shut you out, but I wanted to come in to the discussion with a clear head. Not when I was angry or hurt.”
“But we’re supposed to be able to get hurt and angry together. You didn’t let me be there for you for that decision. You’ve made huge decisions without me too, Nathan.”
He swallows. “I see that now. It’s okay to be scared. It’s not okay to be a coward, and I was, and I’m sorry.”
When I see the remorse on his face, I just want to be close to him. I lean in and nuzzle his neck, breathing in his musk. I can feel his fast heartbeat. He’s nervous. Or scared. Forgiveness isn’t hard to find, because I’ve wanted to give it for so long. I’ve wanted to move past this with him. He was the one holding onto things that couldn’t be changed. “I forgive you,” I whisper into his skin. I feel him here. Home. My Nathan. That’s why I can say the words and mean them. “Can you forgive me for not telling you about the baby?”
He nods. “Yes. I was never trying to be your enemy.”
“I wanted the baby, but it was the wrong time for us.” My chest stutters when I inhale, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the tears to keep talking into the warm space between his jaw and neck. “I want one now, but I’m afraid I can’t give you that. I can’t stand to disappoint you month after month, possibly even years.”
“What’s the alternative? We don’t even try? We break up?”
“I don’t know.”
“You chose me once over a baby,” he says. “Would you do it again?”
I swallow. There’s never been any question that Nathan wants this, but I have to as well. I can do it a lot of different ways—naturally, or with medical intervention, or by adopting—but I have to want to be a mother for myself. Not because he wants me to. “I choose you, and I want you to choose me back. Even if I can’t give you what you want most in the world.”
He cups his hand against my cheek, keeping me there. “I love you, Sadie. You’re what I want. You can close off your heart, but don’t forget—I know how to tear you open. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again and again until you realize I will never, ever let you abandon me. And I will never, ever abandon you.”
It isn’t until we walk into Ralph’s hospital room that the reality of what’s happening hits me.
Nathan’s aunt greets us with mascara under her eyes. We each take a turn to hug her. “I just got here,” she says.
Ralph is gaunt and the color of his hospital-green gown. He already looks halfway underground. He slits his eyes open and nods. I want to turn into Nathan’s chest and hide and cry. Ralph and I aren’t father and daughter by any means. The way Nathan was the last few months, cold and distant, is how Ralph has been his whole life. But he’s still family.
“You don’t got family of your own?” he asked me at dinner once, while Nate was in another room.
I wiped my brow. Ralph and I hadn’t spent much time alone. “I do.”
“They’re no good? Nathan gets bent out of shape when I ask.”
“He’s protective.”
“Maybe he thinks I’m going to try and be a dad to you. I’m not. Not that kind of guy.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I have a dad. Not a very good one, but Nathan and I have learned to live with what we got.”
“You saying I’m not a good dad?”
“I think you are, actually.” It was the truth. The man couldn’t tell Nathan he loved him, but I knew he did by the way he looked at him. Nathan had always blamed hi
s dad for ignoring his mom so long, she’d had no choice but to go away. “Seems to me like maybe some things got mixed up along the way.”
Ralph eyed me closely. “He thinks I didn’t love his mom. I did. Too much. It was hard to watch her fall out of love with me.”
“So you pushed her away instead,” I guessed.
“She would’ve stayed no matter how she felt,” he said, looking away from me. “Now, she’s happier. Lives in California with some guy who has money.” I thought that was the end of it, but before Nathan returned, Ralph said, “If you ever think he’s falling out of love with you, stop him. Before it’s too late.”
I don’t think Nathan will ever understand the space Ralph put between himself and his wife, but I do. For whatever reason, he couldn’t make her as happy as he thought she deserved. Even if I understand it, I don’t want it for us. Nathan and I will have to work harder to be happy with ourselves so we can be happy together. To communicate, especially when it feels impossible.
Today, Ralph doesn’t seem well enough to speak. He’s alive, though. Nathan hugs his dad for a few long moments. He tells him he loves him, sits, and holds his hand as I hold Nathan’s.
Ralph falls back asleep, even though we’ve only been there five minutes. Nathan slouches back in the chair but doesn’t take his eyes off Ralph. “I should call my mom.”
“I’ll do it,” I say. “Stay here just in case.”
His expression is blank as he looks up at me. He pats his lap. “Sit with me?”
I smooth his hair back and kiss him on the forehead, his skin warm under my lips. Familiar. “I will. After I make the call.”
I pull up his mom’s contact information on the way to the cafeteria. She answers my call right away. “Sadie. This is unexpected. Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I say. “Well, no. Ralph is—” I pause.
“Oh.” Neither of us speaks for a few seconds. “I wish I could be there.”
Slip of the Tongue Page 34
