Thought I Knew You(90)

The next day, when I kissed Greg goodbye on the cheek, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a rare embrace. “I’m sorry. For everything.”

I turned away because there was nothing to say and I couldn’t face my anger, which still simmered under the surface. What kind of person would still hold a grudge? Hadn’t Greg paid enough? And yet, in my weaker moments, when Greg would forget Leah’s name, again, or forget, again, that the album we were looking at was from Maine, when we were first married, but before Hannah was born, even though I’d told him three times already, I would stare at him and think, horribly, This is all your fucking fault. And those were the moments that kept me awake at night, the fear of failure creeping up on me in the dark, black and wet and suffocating until I sat up, feeling for Drew on the other side of the bed and finding only the cold, empty expanse of hotel sheets.





When I returned Sunday evening, Mom had already dropped off the girls. Every other week, I arranged for them to spend the weekend with my parents instead of Drew, to mix it up and give Drew a break. A wonderful mixture of garlic and lemon hung in the air, and it smelled like home to me. I paused in the hallway, watching him stir something on the stove, laugh at something Hannah said, and take a sip of wine at the same time. He looked at ease in his kitchen, his house. When he turned and saw me, he smiled tentatively, traces of our Friday night argument still between us. I wrapped my arms around him from behind, burying my face in his back, inhaling the scent of him. I thought about how unfair things were to both of us and wondered what the future held. I rubbing my nose back and forth between his shoulder blades, saying, I’m sorry for Friday.



He leaned back into me and patted my hands. You’re forgiven. He turned his head and, in profile, gave me a wry smile with one raised eyebrow. Sort of.

Later, I was setting the table, lost in thought, when I heard Hannah ask Drew, “When did you get home?”

Drew replied, “What do you mean, Hannah? I’ve been here all weekend.”

As I walked to the powder room in the hallway, I stopped to listen.

“No,” Hannah insisted. “There were two suitcases by the door yesterday. Remember? When we came back for our roller skates? Did you go to New York?”

Drew’s reply was muffled, low and inaudible, but his tone sounded impatient.

When I came out of the bathroom, Hannah and Leah were watching TV in the living room, and Drew was putting dinner on the table.

“Did I hear Hannah say you went to the city?” I asked.

“Oh, I went to John’s gallery for some paperwork.” He handed me a bottle of wine and walked back into the kitchen.

That doesn’t make sense. I let it go, for the moment. I had spent too much of my life blindly trusting another person, and my radar was hypersensitive, going off at the slightest signal. I have no reason not to trust Drew.





Yet still, all during dinner, something niggled the edges of my subconscious. I put the girls to bed and joined Drew in the living room. Sunday nights were ours. We sat on the couch in the living room, sharing a bottle of wine, sometimes talking about Greg, sometimes—more so lately—in our own private thoughts, but still together. Things felt different, though. Drew seemed quieter.

Finally, I asked, “Why would you need two suitcases to go to the gallery?”

He stumbled with his words, and then realization dawned, a horrible clenching in my stomach.

“You were leaving.” I said it simply and without embellishment. He had no reply, and I knew I was right. “But you didn’t. You’re here. Why?”

He swirled the wine in his glass and cleared his throat. “I thought maybe you would be better off. If Greg came home, you could be a family…”

“Bullshit.”

He shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “I was being a coward. I was scared.”

We sat for a few minutes, not looking at each other. My hands shook as I sipped my wine, and I felt sick. “Are we going to make it through this?” I asked eventually, needing the answer to be yes, but ultimately unsure that it would be.

“I don’t know.” He pulled me to him and kissed the top of my head. “I know you’re going through a lot, Claire. I try to do what I can to be here for you. But you internalize everything, and I can’t sit here day after day, waiting for you to come back. Even when you’re here, you’re not.”

“I can’t help that. I have nothing left to give. Can’t you understand that?”

“To some extent, yes, but all I do is give. And yet, I’m last. After Greg, after Hannah and Leah, even after your mom. Can’t you understand that?”