Nate nodded and steered the car into the left-turn lane. He pulled into our usual spot next to the Shake Shack without commenting.
“Nate?” I realized how little he’d said all day. I’d been so focused on all the lasts that were yielding to new firsts that I hadn’t really noticed the remoteness of his disposition—even during the now infamous bludgeoning of the chemo bell. He’d videoed the milestone, but looking back, I could recall neither smile nor encouraging words. Just his quiet presence on the outskirts of the high fives and attagirls swirling like confetti in the hall.
“Honey.” I leaned forward a little to try to meet his gaze and laid a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, “I’m done.”
“We’re done.” I nodded. I closed my eyes, let my head fall back, and laughed, reaching out to squeeze his arm in excitement and relief. “Nate! We’re done!”
He turned in his seat and carefully removed my hand from his arm. “I told myself I’d see you through it.” His voice was thin, like he was out of breath. “And I—” He looked at me then. Right into my eyes. I realized with a jolt how long it had been since his gaze had been that direct. “I saw you through it, Cee.”
I felt my lungs constrict as a trickle of dread ran down my spine. “Nate . . .”
He straightened and faced forward, gripping the steering wheel too tightly. “I—I need to breathe. Not Hawaii, not Switzerland. Not a friggin’ malted shake . . .” A muscle in his jaw clenched as he sucked air in through his nose. “I need to breathe,” he said again, a tremor in his voice.
I tried to still the thoughts ricocheting in my mind.
“What are you saying . . . ?”
“I need out.” Just like that. Flat voice. Flat gaze.
I looked at him and tried to swallow the shock and unasked questions clogging my throat.
“Okay, so you need a break,” I said, inwardly begging for that to be all this was. Him needing to get away. A day. Maybe a week.
His headshake was nearly imperceptible. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. Something impenetrable descended over his form and countenance. The look on my husband’s face was hard and merciless and stunningly sure. “This is what we’re going to do.”
I bit my lip as my stomach clenched in disbelief and my lungs froze. The voice. It wasn’t his. It was too cold to be Nate’s.
“We’re going to go in there and get you your shake.” His words had a stony undertone. “Then I’m going to drive you home and get my stuff.” He turned the engine off. “We can figure out the details later, but, Ceelie . . .” He glanced at me, and I saw something that looked like hard-earned freedom in his eyes. “I’m done.”
We never got the milkshake.
Nate’s declaration on the heels of the day’s monumental high was too much for my mind to process. I felt it shutting down, a spectator to my own mental break. I could hear Nate talking, but his words were garbled and slurred. He shook me by the arms and spoke so loudly in front of my face that I could feel his spittle, but nothing registered.
We drove home. He came around the car to help me out. Or to evict me. That’s what it felt like. When I didn’t get out of the car—not out of stubbornness but from sheer lack of strength—he said something about my drama getting old and stalked into the house. I sat there. For a couple minutes. Or maybe a lot longer.
The walk up the front steps felt overwhelming. My skin tingled and I couldn’t seem to take in a full breath. There was a large duffel bag by the door. That was fast, I thought. Nate was pulling jackets and baseball caps out of the hall closet and stuffing them into another bag when I walked in.
He looked up. There was purpose on his face—maybe even excitement.
“I’ll get a room at the La Quinta for now,” he said, pausing only briefly on his way to the living room. “You can reach me there if you need anyth—” The words seemed to bring him up short. Habit. No longer necessary.
I sank into the wingback chair and shook my head. Tears blurred my vision. “Nate.”
He looked up at me for a moment, then went back to unplugging his record player. The one he’d bought for our anniversary. The one he’d played music on the last time we’d danced. He set it aside with a handful of LPs. “I wanted to wait. Really, Cee. I planned on waiting longer. But . . .”
I could feel myself frowning, trying to make sense of this brutal turnabout. A hand went to the turban that covered my head. “We talked about this. The hair and the”—I swallowed hard—“the surgery. You told me it wouldn’t change how you—”
“But everything else has changed!” He looked surprised at the volume of his own voice. I hadn’t heard Nate yell at me that way before. Not with such disdain.
“Please don’t do this,” I whispered, wondering how the day I celebrated victory had turned into the day I lost my future.
Nate went to the desk in the alcove off the living room and started pulling out papers and blueprints—the work he’d started bringing home when I’d been at my worst. He was moving more slowly now, as though he was running out of steam.
He put down the leather messenger bag he’d been filling and sat on the armrest of the couch, taut and gaunt. He was quiet for a moment. Then he murmured, “I need to do this. I need out—away.”
“But I’m better. The cancer—”
“It’s not just the cancer,” he said through gritted teeth, every syllable loaded with frustration. “It’s . . . I don’t know. It’s everything.”
“Nate . . .” I shook my head. “I thought—I felt . . .” At a loss for words, I just stared at him, praying he’d understand what my mind couldn’t formulate. “We’ve been better. I know we grew apart a bit, but . . . it’s been better. Right? Especially since the diagnosis. We’ve been good.” I said it loudly. To convince Nate. To convince me.
He ran tense fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve tried to convince myself—us—that we are. But we’re not. You have to see that too. We might be better, but ‘better’ is a long way from ‘good.’”
I shook my head. “Relationships change. People evolve. We can get back to good again.”
He stood and stared at the floor for a moment. Something that looked like regret crossed his face just long enough for me to wonder if I’d imagined it. “I’ve pushed through, Ceelie. I’ve done all I can for as long as I could.” He closed his eyes as if the enormity of the milestone was finally hitting him. When he opened them again, they fastened on mine with chilling clarity. “I didn’t want to do this now. Not this way. But . . .” He tucked the messenger bag under his arm and walked to the door to pick up the duffel. “I’m done.”
Chapter 4
I sat in the house for two days.
When I wasn’t in the wingback chair, I was sleeping on the couch. I went to the kitchen on occasion for a yogurt or some fruit, then I went back to the living room on wooden legs and sat some more.