Chapter 22
He pushed back his chair.
“Claire, please.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
His eyes were already wet.
“You decided.”
I nodded.
Mark turned away.
He walked toward the sink, stopped, then pressed both hands against the counter.
I looked at the little lamp.
Still glowing.
“I want a separation.”
His shoulders dropped.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he said, “How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that just a softer way of saying it’s over?”
I could have protected him.
I could have said maybe.
I could have offered a possibility I did not feel.
That had been my role for years.
Soften.
Reassure.
Wait.
I did not do it.
“I think our marriage as we knew it is over.”
He turned.
“Claire.”
“I’m not saying the twenty-two years meant nothing.”
“They didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I ended it with her.”
“I know.”
“I’ll never speak to her again.”
“That doesn’t change what I need.”
“What do you need?”
I thought about the hotel room.
The silence.
The strange peace of knowing nobody was about to arrive with an explanation.
“I need to trust myself again.”
Mark’s face twisted.
“I did that to you.”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly.
For once, he did not argue.
“I don’t know how to forgive myself for that.”
“That’s something you’ll have to figure out.”
He looked at me.
“Without you?”
There was no good answer.
“Yes.”
Mark sat down.
I remained standing because if I sat beside him, I knew I would reach for his hand.
Love is full of reflexes.
Some survive longer than the relationship that created them.
“I thought you’d yell,” he said.
“When?”
“When you found out.”
“I thought I would too.”
“I thought you’d throw something. Tell me to get out. Call me every name I deserved.”
“I didn’t have the energy.”
“That was worse.”
I looked at him.
He gave a broken laugh.
“God, Claire. Your silence was worse.”
I remembered 2:08.
His whisper in the dark.
“Claire?”
And my decision not to answer.
“For years, you acted like my questions were the worst thing I could do to you.”
“I know.”
“They were the best thing.”
His face crumpled.
“I know that now.”
“They meant I still believed your answers mattered.”
“I know.”
“When I stopped asking, it was because something in me had already started leaving.”
He covered his mouth with one hand.