by Doyle, S.
But in the end, when I thought of what I would say to her when she woke up…I knew I had to go.
As cautiously as I could, I slipped out from under her and off the bed. Not that it would have mattered. A train running through my room wasn’t going to rouse her. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the suitcase. The suitcase Jules had packed for me because, after she told me the news, I’d lost any ability to think or act.
Quietly moving across the room, I closed the door behind me with a faint click. Barefoot, I padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. A cup of coffee and some space and I would figure out what I needed to say.
Jules, thanks for fucking me so I didn’t Hulk out. But I can’t…handle you.
Yeah, not great.
In the kitchen, my mother was already sitting at the table. A cup of tea in front of her.
“Mom,” I croaked out, because just the sight of her made my heart ache. “What are you doing up? It’s too early.”
She looked at me and I could see the pain in her eyes, and it made me want to cry.
“You could take another pill...” I suggested and the irony wasn’t lost on me.
She shook her head. “There is no pill for grief. Or sadness. Or heartbreak. There is just time and acceptance, and both of those seem very far away right now. Sit with me. Keep me company.”
I put together a pot of coffee first, then joined her at the kitchen table. I always preferred it when we ate in here. It felt more like we were a family. Something we all had to try a little too hard to make happen.
“I’m sorry I was such an ass growing up,” I blurted out. It was too late for apologies. Dad was already gone. But I had to try. “I’m sorry I made things harder for you and Dad.”
She leaned back in the chair and looked at me. “Do you know I almost divorced your father?”
My eyebrows shot up because I didn’t. I couldn’t even imagine it. They were always a matched set in my mind. Which was what made him being gone so difficult to understand. How was my mother going to do this? Live her life without him? How did anyone?
“It was after you left…I was so mad at him. I thought he’d been too stubborn. Too rigid. That he’d driven you away by trying to control you. Even though I knew I was just as much to blame.”
He’d been both those things and he had driven me away. But she didn’t need to hear that now.
“But I wanted you home with me so bad that I didn’t fight hard enough for you. We were suffocating you. I knew that. But there was a time when you were so fragile… Anyway, he convinced me not to leave. He told me he would fix it and that someday you would come home. He was wrong. He didn’t fix it.”
“Mom, I did come home.”
She sighed. “You came home because Julia told you it was the right thing to do. That was the one thing your father got right. Finding her and making her see that we were human. That we loved you. Because you loved her so much, you were willing to see us through her eyes. That’s why you came home.”
I squirmed in my chair and took a sip of coffee.
Mom reached out to squeeze my empty hand. “Don’t be afraid to love, Ethan. I know it’s frightening. I know you’re looking at me now thinking this is the worst thing that could happen. And of course it is. It’s soul crushing and I don’t know how…”
Her voice cracked and I linked my fingers between hers, holding on to her so she would know that I was the how. I would let her suffocate me with kisses and ice-cream sandwiches for the next thirty years if that’s what she wanted to do. If that would ease her heart even a little.
She swallowed. “But it’s not the worst thing. Not really. The worst thing would have been if your father and I hadn’t had all these years together.”
I tried to pull my hand away, but she held it tighter. Her expression nearly desperate.
“You think you’re not worthy of love because the woman who gave birth to you gave you away and she didn’t treat herself right when she had the gift of you inside her. I’ve never known that gift, and it’s one of the many reasons I’ve always hated that bitch. But you deserve to be loved, Ethan. For you. Your father and I tried…and yes, we made mistakes, but not Julia. She’s loved you just for who you are all these years. You have to see that. Now, in this horrible, horrible moment. You have to see that.”
I leaned forward and kissed my mother on her forehead. I needed to get away from her, but I didn’t want her to know how urgent my need was. I couldn’t handle the surge of emotions in my chest. It hurt in a way that I couldn’t breathe properly. Shallow, tiny breaths were all I could manage.
I couldn’t go back to my room where Jules was sleeping, naked and soft under the covers. I didn’t trust myself not to climb back into bed with her.
“I’m going to go for a walk. I need some air.”
“You’ll be back?”
I hated that there was a question in her voice. I hated that she was right to ask because if I could have…I would have run away.
“I’ll be back.”
* * *
New York
Julia
I opened my laptop and tried to focus on my email. There were more than enough urgent matters that should have been able to capture my attention, but it felt like I was underwater and the only thing I was truly focusing on was breathing.
Ethan had been gone when I woke in his bed this morning and part of me had been grateful while another part of me…
I could tell myself a hundred things about what last night was. Justify, quantify it. Put it in a box and put the box away. But it would be a lie. I knew it, and I thought, maybe, he did, too.
Which was why, this time, we were going to have to talk. Really talk about what happened. And it scared the crap out of me.
Of course, there was another option.
He and his mom were at the lawyer’s office right now, reviewing the will. I could pack my bag, head for JFK, and get a flight to Seattle today. The truth was it might be the kinder thing to do for him. He was emotional, he was grieving. Last night had obviously been an anomaly. If I left quietly without having the conversation, then maybe we could pretend…
No. I couldn’t pretend. Not anymore.
I’d lied to him the first time it happened… God, did I tell him about that? No, I couldn’t. Not under these circumstances when I could sense what it was costing him to keep control over his emotions.
I’d pretended like the second time hadn’t mattered, only it had. It mattered so much it forced me to become engaged to a man I wasn’t in love with just to pretend Ethan hadn’t stolen my soul.
This time had to be different. This time I had to be honest with him.
So what was the truth?
My feelings for Ethan were so convoluted, and had been for so many years, I didn’t know where to start.
I heard the door to the apartment open and there were voices in the foyer. I came out of the study and waited for both of them.
Rachel continued to look like her world had been destroyed. But she’d done her hair and makeup for the meeting and I thought that was a good sign. Better than staying in bed all day.
“How did it go?” The first words I’d spoken to Ethan since last night. Was my face red? Did he look awkward?
“I’m a very wealthy woman. Yay, me,” Rachel said drily. “What time is it, dear?”
“Just after three.”
She nodded. “I’m going to lie down before dinner. Maybe we could order something in?”
“People have been dropping things off all day,” I said. “Cookies, Blue Apron boxes, casseroles, you name it. We’ll figure something out.”
She nodded, then patted my arm as she walked by me down the hallway to her room. Leaving Ethan and me alone.
“What about you? Can I get you something?” I offered. Then quickly clarified. “Food, tea…something like that?”
He shook his head, but he hadn’t quite managed to look at me yet. I didn’t take that as a positive sign that this co
nversation was going to go well.
“We have to talk,” I said. I was proud of how smooth the words sounded. As if at least I was collected.
He nodded solemnly.
He followed me into the study. I preferred that room as there were two doors now between us and his mom. I had this idea I could walk around the desk and sit across from him, using it as a buffer. But I stopped myself. A desk wasn’t going to offer me any protection. Not for this conversation. No matter how sturdy and heavy that desk might be.
Instead, I leaned against the front of it, and when I saw I was crossing my arms over my chest, I intentionally brought them to my sides and held onto the edge instead.
“Before you say anything,” he began. “I want to say thank you. You’ve been incredible to us both these past few days. I don’t know what either one of us would have done without you.”
I nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“I should also tell you…I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes, I’m not happy with some of the feedback I’m hearing related to our deal in Tokyo. What should have been a done deal now suddenly feels as if we’re on shaky ground. I need to be there to make sure their commitment to Phoenix doesn’t waver.”
“I haven’t been hearing any feedback.”
He looked me straight in my face. “You haven’t been cc’d on the emails. Just me.”
“Japan,” I repeated, feeling as though if I didn’t grip the ends of the desk hard enough, I would fall to my knees. But I supposed I’d spent enough time there recently. “For how long?”
He shoved his hands into the pockets of the suit pants he’d worn for the meeting and shrugged. “For however long it takes. I know I talked about a vacation…but I just don’t see how I can make that happen. Not with everything going on.”
I let his answer sit between us. I considered all the things I thought we should say to each other. Maybe what I wanted to say. But now, all of that seemed moot. His leaving for an unknown duration seemed to say it all. For both of us.
“What about your mother?”
“I’m trying to persuade her to come with me. Maybe not right away, but after a few weeks…the change in scenery might help.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Now about last night…”
I raised my hand to stop his words. He’d said everything with his actions, with his decisions. At least from my point of view. Ethan wasn’t going to Japan to shore up the Tokyo deal. He was going to Japan to get away from me.
Just like he’d gone to Europe after Daniel’s wedding.
Which meant, to him, last night wasn’t any different than that other night had been. A one-time fling, done and forgotten. A need quickly satisfied then space put between us to help clear up any messy confusion about what we were to each other.
So I didn’t need to hear his excuses about why it had happened last night. I could fill in those blanks on my own.
“When I said we needed to talk, I only meant about our next steps. Which you’ve made pretty clear. I’ll head to Seattle on the next available flight. And you’ll let me know how things are going in Japan.” I pushed myself off the desk and started to walk around him.
“Jules…” he said, reaching for my wrist.
“Let go of me, Ethan,” I said quietly. “Right now.”
He dropped his hand. “I…I don’t know what to say to you.”
I lifted my chin. “You’ve made your appreciation of my efforts clear. That’s all that needs to be said. I won’t be here when your mother wakes up from her nap. You’ll figure out dinner for her. It’s important that she eats, even if it’s just a few bites, and let her know I had to get back to work because of an emergency.”
He nodded and closed his eyes.
Stepping around him, shutting the door behind me and went to my room to pack. I ended up spending the night at an airport hotel, as the next available flight wasn’t until seven the next morning. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t go back to the apartment.
And when I stepped onto the plane, I knew a sense of finality I hadn’t felt since walking away from my father’s grave.
This is done now, my gut told me. We were done.
11
Three months apart
Jules,
This might be the longest we’ve gone without communicating in the past twelve years. You can’t feel good about this. It can’t be easy for you, either. I know you too well.
You’re mad. You’re hurt. You’re stubborn (way more than I am, btw).
I understand all this. But cutting you off from me means you’ve also cut me off from you. And that worries me.
Who is watching over you? Who is making sure you don’t work too hard? That you take time for lunch? That you stop stressing over every little issue?
Who is sitting in your office with you to break up the intensity of the day by making you laugh?
You can say I did a lot of shitty things. And I did. Compartmentalizing how I feel about you being the biggest and most obvious one.
But I’m also the guy who has always been there for you. The guy who has worried about you when you were hurt. The guy who has pushed you when you were afraid to take the risk.
The guy who held your hair when you puked up your guts over ANOTHER GUY!
The guy who has loved you.
In all of the worst things I’ve done, did you ever once feel like you were alone? That I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to protect you? To support you? To be by your side?
Think about it, Jules.
Do you ever remember a time when we weren’t each other’s person?
Please forgive me. Please.
Ethan
* * *
One week ago
Japan
Ethan
“She’s not writing me back,” I told my mother. We were sitting in a meditation garden. I wasn’t sure what the rules were about talking, but it felt like a good place to confess.
My mother sat next to me on the bench and took my hand. I hadn’t been lying when I said her grief was the worst thing I’d ever seen. But I hadn’t lost her to it. She was still fighting to stay a part of the world.
“You need to go home to her. Tell her what you’ve been telling me to her face. So she can hear you.”
“I…I don’t know if I’m ready. With Jules, there is no screwing this up again. If I get her to talk to me, hear me, I’ve got one chance. Only I don’t know what that one chance looks like.”
“Marriage. Grandbabies,” my mother said simply.
“It’s not that easy for me. You said so yourself.”
“I did. And I told you not to let it get away,” she said, nudging me with her shoulder. “I love that I’m sitting in this garden. I love that I’m so far away from everyone I know in New York. I love that sometimes I can close my eyes here and still hear your father in my head. So thank you for bringing me here. But Ethan, you’re an idiot.”
I winced.
“She’s not going to wait for you forever. She’s too proud. And more than that, she’s too afraid of getting hurt. More than she’s already been, if I had to guess. I’ve never met a girl more courageous and scared all at the same time.”
Yes, I thought. In so many ways that’s Jules.
“Do you think she’s reading my letters, at least?”
“Would you read them?”
Yes. I would read them. But I also wouldn’t answer her, if only to punish her for hurting me. Just like she was punishing me now.
“You were there, Mom,” I whispered quietly. “When I was a kid and you would tell me I had to eat my vegetables and I smashed my plate against the table and threw my glass against the wall. All of that…it’s still in me.”
“Ethan, are you worried you would be violent with Julia?”
I shook my head. No. Physically hurting Jules wasn’t possible and I’d never lost my shit to the point where that had been a concern. “It’s the lack of control I would have.
If I let myself love her…”
“Ethan, you already do love her. There is no changing that. There hasn’t been for these past twelve years. I saw it. Your father saw it. We just didn’t understand why you were fighting it so much…but now it makes sense. I thought it was because you felt you didn’t deserve to be loved, but that’s not it at all, is it? It’s because you’re afraid you’re going to love her too much.”
I dropped my head and she wrapped her arm around me to pull me close.
“My poor baby boy, I know you’re scared. What I don’t know is if you’re brave.”
I shot my mother a look and she smiled. “I’m going to walk around the park while you sit here with your thoughts. It really is a lovely place to think. Or not. Maybe you need to let yourself feel.”
Pulling out my phone, I thought about actually emailing Jules. That hadn’t been our thing while she was still in college. We’d liked the letters. The letters were a tangible thing that we could hold on to. Now, however, I wanted the expediency of the internet.
To let her know…I loved her.
Three months of thinking about it, considering it, dismissing it. Weighing it, worrying about it, and wondering if it was even possible for me.
Writing about it. I thought of my last letter to her. The one I didn’t know if she was even going to read. Would she understand what I said? Would she see the words plainly written out and know how true they were?
Maybe my mother was right. Maybe I needed to tell her what I was feeling myself. I put the phone in my back pocket and went to catch up with Mom. It was time to make arrangements to head home.
First to New York. Then to Seattle.
* * *
Therapy
Ethan
“Did you read the letters, Julia?”
She looked up at Carol, who had asked the question. Then I watched as she reached for the purse she’d set next to her chair. She pulled out the letters I’d written to her over the past three months. All tied together with a string.
