When I got home from the golf weekend with Tish, it felt like I’d been away for longer than two days. It felt like I used to feel when I got home from summer camp, or college, the feeling that I’d missed the changing of the season, or something else that happens by inches when it’s right in front of you.
It was a feeling that was hard to get rid of, that I tried to ignore, though I knew I couldn’t or shouldn’t.
But I tried.
I buried myself in work, barely looking up from the moment I sat at my desk.
I made an extra effort to do things with Seth at night and on the weekends. I helped him with his homework. I bought him a new set of golf clubs, the clubs that would see him through till he was fully grown, and we made plans for the summer, discussed the rounds we’d play when school let out.
I made some time for Claire too. We cooked meals together, me acting as sous chef, chopping, tasting, and cleaning up afterwards. I got a sitter for Friday night so we could go to a movie she’d been eager to see for months. Afterwards, we made love slowly, quietly, after we’d taken the sitter home and made sure that Seth was actually asleep instead of just pretending.
A weekend full of mending fences, literally—a whole section at the back of our lot was rotting into the ground. It wasn’t my sort of thing, I wasn’t any good at it, but I drove those fence posts home. I hammered the cross-sections into place, so they were there, slightly off plumb, for all to see if anyone was looking, even though I knew I was the only one who was.
I was here. I was staying.
I kept myself busy so my mind wouldn’t stray, so it would stay faithful.
I tried, but I couldn’t do it.
A week after we got home, I got an email from Tish at 11:04 a.m.
I was sitting at my desk, my muscles aching from the unfamiliar effort I’d put in with the fence posts over the weekend, my mind aching too.
I know the exact time I received the email because I’d been watching the clock on my computer tick over every minute since I sat down at my desk, an email to her open but unstarted.
This was not the first communication we’d had since we said goodbye in L.A. — we’d kept up a light flow of banter since then—when we’d given each other a brief hug at the airport, when we’d wanted to hold on tightly. But I knew from the first and only word that this email was different, that somehow, in the symbiosis that was us on our good days, we were finally going to have the conversation we should’ve had, maybe a long time ago.
So … is all she wrote.
So, I answered back.
We have a problem, yes?
Houston, we have a problem.
Don’t joke. Not now.
Sorry, I wrote.
It’s okay. What are you thinking?
Honestly?
Of course. Always.
I paused, trying to think of what to write. Trying to put together the words I’d been puzzling out since I’d come home.
But there wasn’t any way I was ever going to get this right.
2 + 2 = 4, I typed eventually with cold fingers and the blood rushing in my ears. We learn this as kids, we teach this to our kids, and unlike so many other things we’re told and we tell others, it’s always true. So maybe that’s why I’ve been trying to add all of this up. But the thing is, the awful thing is, whatever I do, it doesn’t. No matter how I work it, no matter what formula I use, nothing works. Because what I can’t take out of the equation are Claire and Seth, but—and this is harder to say than you could possibly know—if I take you out of the equation, it works. It adds up. At least, I think it does. I’ll never know unless I do it, as much as I don’t want to. Does any of this make sense? Can you possibly not hate me right now?
I hit Send before I had time to stop myself. Then I sat staring at the screen, wondering what I had done.
I had to wait a long time for a response. Several hours. Hours with my door shut, my fingers pressed against my eyelids, trying to blot out the worst headache I’d ever had.
Then, finally:
Will you believe me if I say that your email is one I’ve known has been coming since the beginning? she wrote. It’s one I’ve known I should be writing. It’s one I’ve written a million times in my head. For all the reasons you’ve said. For all the reasons we talked about. Of course I understand. Of course I agree. Of course you’re right. Only, one thing, okay? I need a soft landing before we rip the Band-Aid off.
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, but what other outcome was I hoping for? That she’d beg me to reconsider? That she’d have the missing piece to the formula I couldn’t figure out?
Soft landing? I wrote back. Band-Aid?
Haven’t you ever done that with Seth? When he’s been hurt but then he’s healed, and there’s only the Band-Aid as evidence? So you say, I’m going to rip it off quickly at three, because doing it slowly is worse in the end. I’m thinking that if we do it on a count we agree on, it will hurt like hell for a moment, but not as much as a slow peel.
Okay, I get that, but not the soft landing part.
What I meant is that I need some time to heal before I get injured again.
How much time?
A long pause, then: April 30.
A month away.
Why that date?
I don’t know. Jesus. It’s not like there’s a rule book here.
What do we do from now until then?
And then what?
We rip off the Band-Aid.
We say goodbye?
We say goodbye. Yes?
One last moment of doubt, then I typed the last word. The hardest word.
Yes.