I feel weightless as I walk to my parents’ house from Sara’s office. Signing those papers feels like lifting the last bit of gravity dragging my past along with me.
I never said I was a good husband. Hell, I was probably a lousy human being to Heather, and I don’t mind giving her a payout. My townhouse here is fully paid for and I have Abigail’s rent coming in each month on top of my teaching salary. I’ll be just fine.
Thanks to Sara, my future intellectual property is mine alone. Heather has no further ties to me. None.
The world seems bright and filled with possibilities as my father and I get to work building a small coop for the chickens. I meant what I said to Abigail, that I want to make sure I have multiple reminders not to let myself get buried in my work again. I don’t want to go back to being that person, who selfishly pursues my own obsessions about science at the expense of my relationships with other people. I even have been enjoying spending time with Moorely, now that I understand his humor a bit more.
“Son, I want you to know I think Abigail is a really good match for you.” Dad talks without making eye contact as he makes measurements and marks the wood with a pencil. “Your mom and I are so glad to see you happy.”
“You can tell that I’m happy?” I look around as if I have a mark on my clothes somehow.
Dad chuckles and looks up. “I can, Hunter. And not just because you’re smiling all the time now. You’re also grumbling less and I haven’t even seen you pacing in months.”
“Hm.” I do those things, it’s true—grumble to myself and pace. I don’t know that I considered those were markers of unhappiness. Restlessness. “You’d make a good researcher, Dad.”
He flips down his safety glasses and lines a plank up by the circular saw. “Been there, Hunter. Tried that.” He looks at me for a minute, considering. “Then you came along, and your mother and I were caught off guard. It seemed a more important and worthwhile challenge to stay home and figure out how to help you become…well, just become.”
My parents don’t talk a lot about my dad’s decision to stay home with us 32 years ago. He often says he likes redirecting his analytical energy into making a home for 4 kids and that studying our mother is a career unto itself.
I’m not sure what to make of this revelation that my arrival was the catalyst for his life changing, but then I remember all the catalysts that brought me and Abigail to where we are right now. Dad starts drilling planks together and I fall in step beside him. I said I didn’t want anything fancy or ornate, but by the time Dad calls Archer to borrow his truck for the finished coop, we’ve made the chickens luxurious nesting boxes inside, with easy-access flaps at the bottom for egg retrieval. Dad decides it’s prudent to add a light fixture, too, in case of extreme cold. I don’t bother to tell him the chickens are currently in my dining room. I suppose it’s not good practice to default to having the chickens inside the house.
Archer arrives and admires the coop, smacking me on the back and then hugging Dad. The three of us put the coop in Archer’s truck bed and squeeze into the cab. When we pull up to my house, I see a familiar Lexus parked out front, and my chest tightens. “Wait here,” I say to my dad and Archer, approaching the front door with trepidation.
If my ex-wife is in my house, I want to get her out of there as quickly as possible. Why the hell would she be in town? We signed the papers electronically via our respective lawyers. Heather shouldn’t be anywhere near Oak Creek. I don’t even want Abigail to see her on the property, let alone risk her coming across Heather in the back yard or something.
I curse myself for how quickly I returned to the small-town habit of leaving my doors unlocked. While it’s convenient leaving the house with no keys, clearly the practice leaves much to be desired in terms of security.
I open the door slowly, and my fears are realized. “Heather,” I say, frowning at both her and the bags she seems to have brought inside. “What is this?”
She snorts. “That’s the greeting I get? What’s it been—a year, Hunter?”
“Well,” I say, “we were supposed to see one another in Kazakhstan a few months ago. You decided not to come, as I recall. You were emptying out our condo.”
Neither of us speaks for awhile, and I remember how long stretches of silence make her uncomfortable. “What’s in the bags, Heather?”
“Oh, those?” She gestures over toward the pile of suitcases. “It’s all things I have no use for. Things I took from the condo.”
“Ok, well why are they here?”
“Well, don’t you want them back? All your special toothpastes and protein powders? I have no further use for them.”
“And yet they belong to you, according to the legal documents we both just signed. So I’ll ask you again, Heather. What are you doing here? I don’t want six-month-old toothpaste.”
“Maybe I wanted to give you one more shot to see what you’re missing,” she says, walking closer. While I never found Heather a turn-off, certainly, I also wouldn’t say she ever particularly aroused me, either.
Nothing about our relationship was related to lust, let alone love. Standing near her now, I realize that more than ever before.
“Heather,” I say, holding out my hands to ensure she maintains a distance between us. “I’ve apologized for my part in the destruction of our marriage. I treated you badly, and I am sorry for that. Honestly, I can say that your leaving me was one of the best things that ever happened to me.” Her face crumples into rage and I know I’ve made a mistake. “That came out wrong.”
“Fuck you, Hunter.” Her voice is cold, calculating. “You think you can just pay me off and I’ll fade into the background?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, actually. And I’ve got a stack of paperwork indicating you agreed.” One of the chickens wanders into the room then and begins to peck at my sneaker. I stoop to pick her up, planting a kiss on her feathered head without thinking. “Look, now you can start fresh…”
Heather stares at me and the chicken, and for the first time, I think I can guess what she is thinking. Heather is upset that I never showed her affection, like I just did so casually with the chicken. She surprises me when she starts to cry quietly, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I just don’t get it,” she says. “I came here to sign these papers and move on with my life. I was so sure you were incapable of loving anyone. While you were up in that lab, never calling, never contacting me for weeks on end, I assumed that you just don’t need human companionship. You were never going to need to be married to me. And so I left.”
Heather wipes at her cheek with her hand, sniffing. “But then I came to town to sign the papers. I was on my way to Philadelphia anyway and figured I’d just sign in person, maybe shake your hand and part as friends. But of course everyone in town is talking all about that damn festival last night. Imagine my surprise to hear them whispering, laughing about Hunter Crawford lovesick, infatuated with his new girlfriend.”
“Heather—”
“No, you let me finish!” Her voice is raw, barely contained emotion shaking out in her words. “How the hell do you think that makes me feel? Oh, wait. You have no idea, right? You don’t understand human emotion. Well, Hunter, it feels like garbage to realize you’re not actually a robot. You just didn’t give a shit about me.”
I am unsure what to do, so I just continue petting the chicken, who pecks at my shirt hopefully while we both wait for Heather to continue. “I loved you once, Hunter. Hunter Crawford, the most brilliant student to grace the halls of MIT in a generation! Paying attention to me in the library, responding to me when I suggested we should go see the Boston Philharmonic. I was somebody when I was with you, Hunter, until the person I was without you seemed to fade away. And then at least I convinced myself you needed me. That you’d be living with animals and chicken shit on the floor without me. And you are living that way and it doesn’t even fucking bother you!”
“Heather, I’m sorry.” I sigh and put down the chicken, holding my palms up in submission. “I should never have taken you for granted.”
She sniffs, drawing in a jagged breath and wiping away one last line of tears. Her nostrils flare and she shakes her head. I watch her transform back into the cool, distant woman I’m accustomed to. “Well, I appreciate your apology. Please don’t contact me. I can show myself out.” She climbs over the luggage and the pair of chickens who have now roosted on the pile of bags. I see her taking in my surroundings. I know it looks sparse and pathetic, covered in feathers and animal droppings. But I don’t care. The important stuff lies on the other side of the wall anyway.
Heather turns to look at me as she opens the door. She says, “Oh I do hope Abigail isn’t too upset after our conversation earlier. The mouth on that girl!”
Before I can accost her and find out precisely what she said to my Abigail, she slams the door in my face and is clicking down the sidewalk. I trip over the stuff in the doorway in my haste to chase after her, and she’s in her car driving away before I can get on my feet and out the front door.
Heather talked to Abigail, I think. Heather must have lied to Abigail. Something is wrong here.
I walk straight to Abigail’s door and knock, but there’s no answer. I pull out my phone to call her, frantically, but my call goes directly to voicemail. Her car is gone. The curtains are all drawn and I can’t see inside.
“Dad,” I shout, jogging around back where he and my brother have just finished setting up the coop.
“Hey, son. Was that Heather I saw leaving?”
“Dad, you have to help me find Abigail.”