My head hurt, my eyes were red and stinging with the tears I’d refused to shed. I plodded up the stairs and stopped at the end of the hall, looking down toward the tiny room at the end of the hall. Under the eaves.
When Simon got to the top of the steps, he stopped behind me. “Caroline?”
I felt him, warm and solid and so close to me. “A nursery?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“You and Ruth were talking about that room becoming a nursery?”
“Babe, it’s late. Let’s go to bed,” he replied, his tone icing a bit. He moved past me and into our bedroom. I followed him, my steps falling harder on the newly refinished floors.
“It is late, but answer my question,” I said as he sank onto the new inflatable bed and started taking off his shoes.
“Look. She said something to me about it being a nice room for a nursery, and I agreed. That’s it. End of story.”
“Wrong. Beginning of story. You want a nursery?”
“Caroline, come on. It’s late,” he said, starting for the bathroom and yanking his shirt off.
“Hey, come back here,” I insisted, following him. “We’re not done talking about this.”
“I think we are. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be,” he snapped, kicking off his shoes.
“This is a huge deal. Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “You want a nursery and you don’t even tell me about it? Yet you’re talking with Ruth about it? Who seems to have all kinds of things to say on the topic?”
“I didn’t say I wanted a nursery. Dammit, Caroline, that’s not how it happened at all.”
“Well, do you? Want a nursery?”
“Sure. Yeah. Of course I do.”
The world exploded.
“Don’t you?” he asked.
The world exploded twice.
“I don’t know! I have no idea! Why in the world do I have to know that right now? Tonight?” I asked, my voice beginning to break. It was all too much—the house, the job, the car, the chaos—and Clive.
Brain and Backbone took a deep breath and steeled themselves. Heart couldn’t be anywhere near this. “Why the hell didn’t you fix that fucking window, Simon?”
Silence. The kind of silence where you can hear the words you just said ringing back to you.
We stared at each other across our master bedroom. How the hell did I get a master bedroom? Master bedrooms were something to aspire to, to grow into. Grown-ups had master bedrooms, and I didn’t know that I wanted to be a grown-up anymore. I just wanted my cat back.
“Jesus, Caroline, I’m so sorry,” he said.
I couldn’t look at him. I just couldn’t, because I knew I’d cave. And I was too angry to cave; too confused to cave.
I walked away, went downstairs, got my keys, and left.
• • •
I went to a diner. It was the only place that was open, and I didn’t want to just drive around all night. And also, I wanted pie.
Was it fair to blame Simon for what happened with Clive? Two schools of thought on this one.
Technically, yes, I could blame him. He didn’t fix the window that I’d specifically asked him to fix. Had he fixed the window, Clive wouldn’t have run away. And right now? It felt good to blame him.
The other school of thought, the mature-adult school, said that there’s no way I should even dream of blaming Simon for this. He loved Clive almost as much as I did, and he already felt terrible for what happened. So the right thing to do would be to call him, invite him down for pie, apologize for blaming him, and then band together to find our boy.
I was pissed. And scared to death that I’d never see Clive again.
When it was nearly dawn and there was no more pie, I decided to head home. When I walked out to the parking lot, there was Simon, getting out of his Range Rover and heading straight for me. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who was pissed.
“What the hell, Caroline? I’ve been driving around for an hour looking for you!”
“Get back in the car, Simon. I can’t talk about this right now.”
“You wanna bet?” he warned, standing in front of my car door.
“I really don’t want to do this right now.”
“I really don’t care,” he said, angling his body as I tried to push past him.
“Let me in.” I could feel the tears beginning, and if I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. “It’s starting to rain.” Dammit, Clive was out in this rain.
“Then we’ll stand here in the rain until you tell me what the hell is going on,” he said, crossing his arms and planting his feet. Then the sky really opened up, and big fat drops began to splatter everywhere. Yeah, those were raindrops on my cheeks.