Still, dinner with him. Brunch with him. Casually sharing their lives.
“I would never move on,” she blurted out unintentionally.
“Neither would I.”
“So we’re agreed. Us trying for some type of friendship...would be a bad thing.”
“Nope. We don’t agree on that at all.”
* * *
IT WASN’T TOO LATE, just after nine, when they reached the cabin. It was outside of the snow slopes of Breckenridge. Far enough away that there was little to no tourist traffic. Close enough that, in season, it was easy to get a day pass to go skiing.
The long, winding driveway—or more accurately, dirt road—hadn’t changed in years.
It was mid-September, and the air was just starting to change, but the snow was still a few months off. This was one of Eleanor’s favorite times of the year to be here at the cabin. She wasn’t the biggest skier, having grown up in the flat plains of Nebraska. The idea of sliding down steep slopes at ridiculously high speeds didn’t appeal.
Max had said it was because she was a control freak.
She liked to call it sanity.
But long hikes through the Rockies, in the quiet woods where the most that could be heard were animal noises and running streams. That had been right up her alley.
She pulled up to the sleepy cabin situated on stilts to both get a better view of the front and back decks and to ensure safety from any critters large or small that might try to get in, since the stairs served as the single point of entry.
She turned off the engine, but she didn’t move to get out right away. It had been years since they had been here together. It had been on their last break in the States, before returning to Norway and right before the Great Fight, as she had come to think of it.
She felt the occasion deserved a moment of silence. For their marriage, for his parents. For him, for that matter.
After his parents died, after she had buried them and sold the house, she came to this cabin by herself to mourn. Them, Max...her.
Because it had felt like that. With all the strange potential of her future in front of her, she had felt the need to grieve this lost side of herself. The side of her that loved, deeply.
She could hear Max’s even deep breathing. She noticed he didn’t move, either. She wouldn’t until he was ready.
“Okay,” he finally said after a few minutes. “I’m ready.”
Nodding, she got out of the car. She popped the trunk and reached for the two bags she’d brought. An oversize tote that had everything she needed for a few days and a bag of groceries that would feed them for the same length of time.
He’d pulled out his duffel, and, together, they made their way in silence to the cabin. A two-person funeral procession. They climbed the steps to the second-level deck, and Eleanor fiddled with the keys in her hand until she found the one she was looking for.
She pushed open the door and the smell of pine and long-dead hearth fires greeted her. It never failed to please her.
It also was reminiscent of their tiny little home in Norway. Always cold, always damp, always with a fire burning but so clean and fresh-smelling at the same time. Like coal and oil had never made it that far north to contaminate anyone’s senses.
They weren’t so primitive to live without electricity altogether. A private generator powered lights and the television for occasional movie watching. Eleanor hit the light switch and instantly the cabin glowed to life.
She could feel him behind her. Could feel his tension. She wasn’t really certain how to soothe it away. Technically, it wasn’t her job anymore.
In fact, she told herself she shouldn’t really care how he was feeling. Other than general sadness for his loss. But that would be a lie. And maybe it wasn’t so wrong for her to empathize with his grief. She had to stop thinking as if having any feelings for Max automatically meant she would be vulnerable to falling in love with him again.
They had been married. There were going to be feelings.
It was just about not letting them get out of control. That was what mattered.
“Nothing has changed,” he said.
“No,” she whispered.
Moving forward, she made her way to the kitchen. It was basically one large open room. The kitchen had a breakfast bar that looked out onto the dining room where, as a family, they used to gather to eat after a long day of hiking or skiing. Or in her case, reading and sipping hot chocolate in the ski lodge while the others skied.
The living room was sprawling, filled with big, brown, well-used furniture. The hearth was the feature of the room. A larger-than-average fireplace which took a lot of wood to fuel but provided heat for the entire space, including the two bedrooms that were on either side of a short hallway.
The flat-screen TV, the only thing that hinted of modernism in the old-fashioned cabin, was tucked away in a corner of the room. Sarah had declared it should be used only in case of emergency.
The cabin was supposed to be a place of family. Of talking and sharing. Of fighting. Politics, taxes, climate change. Of discourse. Of ideas. Max had come by his career in academics naturally as both Harry and Sarah had been academics. Harry in economics and Sarah in anthropology.
Together, they had birthed an oceanographic scientist.
All the way from Colorado.
It had been so far removed from her own home growing up. Even when her father was alive, the overriding theme of the Gaffney household was to never say the thing that shouldn’t be said.
The thing that would upset everything.
Allie had dipped her toe in that water the other day over breakfast. Admitting that their parents, in the last years of their marriage before Dad had died, hadn’t been happy.
It had felt like someone pouring a bucket of ice water over Eleanor’s head. A definite shock to the system.
Not here though. Not in this space. There was nothing that wasn’t said here.
“Just like it used to be,” she muttered as she set down her bags.
Three and a half years ago
HIS PARENTS HAD left that afternoon. They hadn’t said anything directly—Harry and Sarah would never be so gauche—but they looked desperately like a couple who wanted to leave their son and his wife to the business of making them grandchildren.
Something Max and Eleanor were more than happy to keep on practicing until they got it just right.
Naked, tangled up in blankets along the couch, Eleanor rested her chin on Max’s chest and thought about the future that lay ahead.
“Let’s stay here, Max. Let’s not go back to Norway.”
“Nor,” he groaned even as he kissed her on top of her head. “You do this every time. You’re like a kid on a vacation who doesn’t want to go back to school. You can’t avoid reality forever.”
Except there was no school for her waiting in Norway. There wasn’t even work. There was tending house, trying to learn the Norwegian language and, mostly, waiting around for Max to get home.
“I’m not talking about staying at the cabin. Although, don’t get me wrong, I could happily live in this cabin naked forever.”
“Naked?”
She thought that might get his attention.
“Buck naked.”
“Won’t that get cold in the winter?”
“Not if I have someone around to keep me warm.”
He growled again. “I’m the only one allowed to keep you warm when you’re naked.”
She lifted herself then, higher on his chest. The blanket fell, and his eyes dropped to her breasts which were now on full display.
“Focus, Max.”
He didn’t lift his eyes, merely raised a single eyebrow. His left. Always his left. “I am.”
She reached out and lifted his chin so that he had to look at her eyes. “I’m serious, Max. I’
m not talking about staying in the cabin. I’m talking about staying in Denver. About settling down. Something more permanent. More stable.”
“We talked about this, Nor.”
It was an old refrain. When they had gotten married, he’d laid out his plans. His timelines. What he needed to accomplish out there in the world before he could settle into a life in academia, which was a lot of teaching and writing articles and books.
When she’d married him, the thought of the two of them traveling the globe, collecting data and potentially saving the world with his climate-change research, had seemed like the most glamorous adventure she could imagine.
The reality was months stuck in places far away from civilization with only Max and some fishermen’s wives with whom she could barely converse as her only company. When the loneliness had started to creep in, Eleanor had told herself she was selfish and spoiled. What Max was doing, he was doing for the planet Earth. Something way more important than her.
But the time alone was starting to take its toll.
She didn’t bother to counter his argument. There was nothing to counter it with. He’d told her what the plan was. She’d agreed to the plan. It wasn’t like she had a leg to stand on. She just knew something was changing between them. The weeks apart weren’t making the time when they were together better. They were making it harder.
Max always assumed they were like a rubber band. No matter how far they stretched apart, they would always snap back together into the exact same shape.
Eleanor, too, had once believed that. That no force could ever separate them indefinitely because what they had was unlike anything she had ever imagined. Certainly far more powerful than her own parents’ relationship.
But now she was coming to see that the rubber band, when you continued to stretch it and stretch it and stretch it, lost some of that elasticity.
“I’m worried, Max,” she said into his chest even as she ran her fingers across his hardening nipples.
“I’m not, Nor. We’re a unit. And nothing is going to change that. Certainly not a couple more months in Norway.”
“You sound so certain.”
“Because I am. Because I love you and you love me and nothing is going to change that.”
“And babies?” She was still in her twenties. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have time. However, it wasn’t something they could put off forever.
“And babies will come. Eventually.”
She sighed.
“Trust me, Nor.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Hey,” he said, and she could hear the concern in his voice. He jostled her enough so that she had to lift her head and look at him again. “Do you trust me?”
She nodded. Of course she trusted him.
“I’m not going to do anything I think might seriously hurt us. I know that much about myself.”
“You love your work,” she had to point out.
“I love you more,” he insisted. “This isn’t a choice between you and the work. This is about you and me doing what we can now while we can make the most difference. Putting it all out there for a couple years to make the most impact. That’s what we agreed to do.”
“But it’s not us doing the work. It’s you. I’m just the cheerleader on the sidelines.”
“You ever go to a successful football team and not see a cheerleader on the sidelines? There is a reason for that. It’s because what I do, everything I do, is for you, Nor. For you, our future, our children. You and I are a team. And don’t think for one second any of the work I do would mean anything if I didn’t know that I had you to come home to.”
She smiled, or at least tried to. “Do you know now if you’re going out to sea?”
He shook his head. “The funding is still up in the air. No one knows if it’s going to go through or not. I can’t see a trip happening for some time. Just a lot of shoreline research.”
She lay against his chest, content to let him stroke her back. Long, slow slides of his fingers all the way up to her shoulders and down over her ass. Soothing but also arousing when, on every third down stroke, he cupped her cheek in his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“We’re going to be okay,” he said even as he began to intensify the strokes. “Because no matter what happens, we’ll always have this. Us.”
He proved his intent, by dipping his fingers between her thighs, feeling her desire, then pulling her up enough so that he could slide his now hard again dick up high inside her. Connecting them.
She gasped.
He hummed.
Yes, she thought. They would always have this.
Chapter Eight
“NOR. NOR?”
She was staring at the cold empty fireplace, and Max had no idea what she was thinking. Or remembering. There had been so many memories it was hard to sift through them all. He shut the door behind him and dropped his duffel.
Then he watched as she sort of drifted off into a trance.
Coming up behind her, he laid a hand on her shoulder. She startled.
“Sorry,” he said. “You looked a little lost.”
“I guess I was. This place...you know.”
Yeah, he thought. He knew. Just standing here was hard. It was like he could see and hear his parents. The boy he’d been growing up. The reluctant teenager who thought this place was boring. The man who had started to see its beauty as he got older.
The twenty-six-year-old girl he’d brought here after their elopement.
The sex had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It had never been deeper or more profound.
It had never been more freeing.
There was no longer any show to put on, no agenda to perform. Nobody to impress. Just two people who would spend the rest of their lives touching and sucking and kissing and coming.
Some people thought sex after marriage was boring or indifferent. He had always thought of it as the best sex of his life.
He closed his eyes and tried not to imagine how long it had been since he’d kissed her. Since he’d held her. Since he’d touched her skin and felt her desire.
The truth was he wasn’t sure if he was really worthy of any of those things anymore. He supposed they would find out in the next few days.
“I’ll start a fire,” he said. It gave him a purpose, which he liked.
He took his time getting down on one knee to open the grate. There would be wood to collect from outside, the fire starter kit to assess in terms of how stocked it was. Many things to do. It would help him to focus on the present. Neither the past nor the future.
“I can help,” she said, approaching to hover over him. He looked up, and he could see she was staring at his right leg, which he had spread out straight. All his weight resting on his left knee.
“Nor.”
She turned to him, her face a picture in concern.
“Remember how back in Denver I let you drive me...”
She seemed hesitant as if it was a trick question.
“Yes.”
“Let me build this fire.”
Her lips tweaked. “You’re such a freaking guy.”
“Thank you. Thank you for that compliment. Now please allow me to retain my ‘guy’ self and make fire.”
“You think that will help, don’t you? That I’ll be impressed even though it’s simply a few logs, some kindling and a match.”
“You always made the fire building sound so ridiculously easy. Building a fire is an art.”
“Okay, Harry.”
It rolled off her tongue perfectly naturally. It’s what she always said whenever he quoted his father. Which Max liked to think he did a lot because his father was a very wise man.
But they both knew it wasn’t really funny anymore.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not ready to... I can’t yet. You know?”
She nodded, moving toward the kitchen.
“Yep. I’ll go unpack the groceries. I bought us some lasagna for tonight. All we have to do is warm it. That and some garlic bread I just have to pop into the oven for a few minutes. Thought it might be easier.”
The number of things he missed about Eleanor, ranked in order:
Her face.
Her kindness.
Her courage.
Her lips, breasts, legs and ass. They were all tied.
Her ability to hear him, however, when he hadn’t said anything at all. That might be number one.
It had been maybe the most defining thing about their relationship. Even in the beginning. He didn’t have to explain himself as he so often did when his thoughts got ahead of his words. It was like she existed as his own personal mind reader. Always knowing what he was trying to say. Always understanding what he was feeling at any given moment.
Could he say he’d been that for her?
Absolutely not. Because on that day when she was trying to tell him, so desperately, how she felt about him leaving, he’d never really heard her.
Reason 155 he’d been the asshole in their relationship. Which was why he needed to fix it.
That would come later. Right now, he had a fire to build. After he procured the necessary supplies, executed the logical procedures and finally lit the match, in seconds flames started to lick and dance among the logs.
Behold, he thought. I have made fire. Surely if I can do that, I can get my wife back.
A few minutes later, he was still staring at his accomplishment, wondering how one went back to the beginning and fixed everything he’d done wrong, while at the same time, clinging to what had worked between them.
Soon, she was next to him again. Two glasses of red wine in her hands.
Of course, he thought, because they were having lasagna for dinner, and red would pair with that better than white.
A moment like this and he might tease her about her mother. How in so many ways she was like Marilyn. Even if it was unconsciously.
He reached to take the glass she held out. Then she went to sit in the leather recliner. By herself. He got up, slowly and trying not to groan too loudly, then sat on the couch.
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