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Lincoln slowed his pace as he took the stairs to his unit door. He stood outside it for seconds, minutes, he couldn’t be sure. His hand hesitated on the knob. Marvin led a whole life before Kali stepped into it, but the man with the limp was connected to Kali some way too. He’d stared at her that day outside the hospital.
Lincoln turned the knob. Inside, Kali sat on the floor with Theo, both of them bent over the track Lincoln made for Theo’s dinky cars. They were smiling, and the smiles stayed as they looked up at him. Theo waved. Kali stood, a question replacing the smile. Lincoln stepped forward.
Was the man the reason she’d been so withdrawn these past days, the reason she’d recoiled from his touch? She’d never mentioned anyone but Derek, but that didn’t mean ...
“What is it?”
Lincoln shook his head, released an awkward laugh, mentally trying to ease away the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. What they had was real. Growing. Slowly, but growing. He wasn’t about to lose her to some past lover, and it was stupid to think he would. “Nothing. I just ... remember that guy I mentioned at the hospital?”
Kali glanced to Theo. “Why?”
“He didn’t sound like anyone you know? An old friend?”
She stared, swallowed.
“Marvin was out sitting with him. Hugging him.”
Kali wrapped her hands around her middle. Her face paled.
“Kali?”
“I never thought ... I really never. I mean I knew one day ... it was possible.” She stared at Lincoln. “I’m sorry.” She looked again to Theo. “Damn. Just—” Kali looked back to Lincoln. Past Lincoln. Her eyes widened. She stepped back.
Lincoln turned to the sound of feet behind him, a man’s gasp. “Is that?” The man’s voice was soft. His eyes misted. “Is—?”
“Go to your room.” Kali snapped at Theo, who stood, his eyes as wide as his mother’s had been. “Now!”
Theo stood, frozen, then ran from the room.
“Kal.” The man turned to her, pleading in his voice as Kali backed away.
“You promised.”
“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “You made a promise for me. I never—”
“No.” She raised her hand.
Lincoln stood between the two. “Kali, who—?”
The man looked toward the hall. “Kal, he’s my boy.”
His boy?
Lincoln turned to the sound of Marvin, who stood against the door jamb, his face aglow. “It’s my Derek.”
“Your ...” Lincoln ran his hands through his hair and looked between Kali and the man. “You’re ...” He opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head, then turned to Derek as he spoke to Kali. “You said he was dead.”
“I didn’t.” Kali’s voice squeaked. “I never said ... you assumed.”
Lincoln whipped his gaze to Kali. “You never corrected me.”
“Hey, man.” Derek’s voice was soft, softer than Lincoln would have expected the voice of a man that large could be. “Not to be rude, but do you mind if I have a few minutes with my wife?”
“Your ...” Lincoln backed away. “Your ex, you mean? Your ex-wife.” He looked to Kali, who looked away.
“No, I mean my wife.”
Lincoln retreated to the kitchen, stopping only when he bumped into the table.
He could hear Derek mumbling something, then Marvin shuffling down the hall toward Theo and Kali’s room.
“What are you doing here?” Kali’s voice was clipped, angry, and just loud enough for Lincoln to hear.
“I was called.”
“Called!” Her voice rang louder now. Clear. Lincoln looked toward the living room and then to the hall. It was wrong, he knew, standing here, listening. But he couldn’t make himself move. Kali’s husband wasn’t dead. Kali’s husband was still her husband.
And he was standing in Lincoln’s living room.
“The police station. They said Dad had been taken in, said he was beaten and ...”
The voice lowered and Lincoln leaned forward. He shook his head, rubbed a hand along his neck, then turned toward the hall. He couldn’t go to his room. One of them may see him from the living room and know he’d been listening. He continued down the hall. The bathroom or Kali’s room—where Marvin and Theo would be talking about what—the fact that Theo’s Daddy had come home?
Lincoln stepped into the bathroom, sat on the edge of the tub, and let his head sink into his hands.
How long had he been sitting there, back hunched, hands over his ears? Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? A gentle rapping made his gaze dart to the door. He waited as the taps sounded again. “Lincoln?”
Kali spoke, her voice soft and uncertain. “Lincoln, are you in there?”
Lincoln nodded. Of course he was in here. Where else would he be?
“Lincoln, can I come in?”
Could she? He hadn’t locked the door, so of course she could.
“He’s gone, Lincoln. And I’m sorry. I—”
Lincoln stood and crossed to the door. He pulled it open to see her standing, hands clenched in front of her chest, her face that of a stranger’s. He hardly recognized the sound of his own voice. “He’s your husband. He’s alive and he’s your husband.”
She swallowed a long draught of air. “Technically.”
Lincoln stared at her.
“We’re legally separated. We have been for years.” She gestured down the hall. “Can we talk?”
Legally separated. It wasn’t divorce. It wasn’t anything, really. Was it?
Lincoln looked down the hall in the opposite direction. “Where’s Theo? Is he—?”
“He’s in the room with Marvin. They’re reading stories. I sent Derek away. He’s coming back tomorrow, but I sent him away. For now.”
For now.
Her voice sounded distracted. “I need time. To tell Theo. To explain.”
“And then?”
“Come.” She gestured down the hall again. “We need to talk.”
Lincoln kept staring. She looked so vulnerable. So weak. But she wasn’t. She’d been strong when he met her. Strong so many times in between. He tried to scan through every moment. Every time she could have told him the truth and every time she hadn’t. That first night Derek’s existence had come up ... he could hear the words again, when he asked if she’d been married: I guess I still am. That was it, the moment she’d come closest. But then he’d pried further. An accident? An illness? And she’d described what happened at Peggy’s Cove, the way Derek had jumped into the water to save a child, the way his brother had jumped in after him. Lincoln had thought it strange, how she’d talked about it. My stupid husband, she’d said. Strange too, the way her body tensed with such anger ... but he didn’t know anything about what it was like to lose a spouse, especially in that way. He could imagine how she’d be angry, how giving into anger could be easier than giving into grief. She’d redirected the conversation and he hadn’t pried further, thinking the grief was taking over, not wanting to push.
She’d been covering a lie, not grief.
She could have told him other times, too. Multiple times. Lincoln closed his eyes—was this how little she thought of him? When they first kissed, when she’d stood across from him in that hotel room, pushing him away, was Derek the reason? Was he at the centre of the ‘complicated life’ she never fully explained?
Lincoln opened his eyes. She could have told him then. She could have told him just days ago, when he’d mentioned the man staring at her, the man with the limp. She must have known. He met her gaze as she stood outside the bathroom, urging him to step into the hall, to talk. She’d known. It explained it all—the preoccupation, the aversion to his touch. She’d known and said nothing. She’d known and let him find out like this.
“No.”
“What?” her voice came out soft, questioning.
“No. We don’t need to talk.”
“But—” She put her hand on his arm and he yanked himself away as if he’d been burned. “I need to go.” He pushed past her.
“Lincoln.”
“Kali,” he turned, his voice sharp, his chest tight, “so many times. So many chances.” He shook his head, remembering the way she’d leaned her head against his chest, looking into his eyes, the way their lips met. How they lay like that for hours some nights after Marvin and Theo were asleep, talking or touching. How patient he’d been, how he believed her hesitancy to progress their relationship, to be intimate, had to do with the memory of her dead husband, the fear of letting herself be with someone else, someone new.
He’d thought his tenderness and patience would win out, that one day she’d trust him enough. Love him enough, the way he loved her ... but this wasn’t love. It was true, she’d never said Derek was dead, but she’d known it’s what he thought. She’d known she was letting him believe a lie. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think he was coming back.”
“But you knew he could.”
“I didn’t think ...”
Lincoln’s arm tensed. He wanted to hit the wall, tear something apart. “Yeah. Exactly. You didn’t think.” He backed away from her. “Or maybe you did. Maybe you thought that would scare me away? That I’d kick you out if I knew I was shacking up with a married woman?”
“We weren’t shacking up.”
“Or you just didn’t care. It was only about what you wanted, what was easy for you, convenient for you.” Lincoln stopped, his breath coming quick. “You’re so selfish it makes me sick.”
“Lincoln.”
“No.” He turned away. “I can’t be here. I can’t go through this again.” Lincoln held his hands out, as if trying to push it all away. “I can’t look at you right now.”
He strode down the hall, the front door slamming behind him. She’d lied. Again and again. Constantly. And he was the fool who’d believed it. Who’d thought what they had, maybe, was love.