Page 15 of The Cabin
It’s just shooting the shit at first. He talks about the set in Glasgow, lots of building trenches and such, the challenge of making new wood look old and muddy and splintered and blasted, things like that.
Two doubles in, and I sense him going sour. He’s quiet, and I let it be. He does this when he’s a few drinks in—goes from animated and easygoing to slow and dark.
“Thinking deep thoughts over there, Nate,” I say.
He shrugs. “Nothing worth sharing.”
“Try me.” I don’t usually push, when he goes dark like this.
He never wants to talk about it anyway, and seems to appreciate that I can just sit and sip and let him claw his way out of whatever pit the whiskey shoved him into. Today, though, I can’t shake my own maudlin, my own depression. I’ve tried to fake it, hanging out with Nathan. A glance here and there from him, though, tells me he sees through it and is just being polite enough to ignore it.
“I will if you will,” he says, his voice a low, bumpy grumble.
I sigh. Flick a finger at the bartender at the other end of the bar; she nods, brings over the bottle. “Breaking the mold here, my friend,” I say. “But you’ve got a deal.”
He waits until our tumblers are full again, two ice cubes each tinkling around the amber. “Truth is, I’m thinking about my wife.”
This has me rocking back on my stool. “You’re married?” I cough around a startled mis-swallow. “I’ve known you almost four years, and you’ve never told me you’re married.”
“Was.”
“Past tense.”
“Yup.” A hefty slug from the tumbler. A hissed growl as it burns on the way down; this is thick, bold scotch, with a rough burn that only turns honey-smooth after you’ve swallowed it.
“Divorced?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Shit.” This hits close. “She, um…she passed?”
He harrumphs. “Hate that bullshit phrase. She passed, like she just sorta moved on, nice and easy. She died.”
I take a more tentative sip. “You, uh. You want to talk about it?”
He’s silent for a long time. “I’ve talked to a shrink. After she died. Every week for six months. Helped, I guess. Very least, I started to understand what I was feeling. Which is…it’s a fucking lot.”
My face burns. The whiskey is unsettled in my belly. I can’t look at him—I’m scared he’ll see the nature of my curiosity. “I imagine it is a lot.”
“No. You don’t imagine.” His forefinger, the size of a frankfurter, if not thicker, taps rapidly on the bar top. “It’s just so much, man. And it’s all tangled together like one big rubber band ball of fuckedupness.”
I go for a sideways bolt of honesty. “I don’t know how to navigate this conversation, Nathan. I want to ask, but not if it’s going to hurt you more. You want to talk, talk. I’ll listen.”
He humphs again, snorting into his whiskey, a narrowing echo of sound as he brings the tumbler to his lips through the snort. “You don’t know what to ask?”
“What not to, more like.”
He chews on the inside of his cheek. “Ask me about her.”
“What was her name? What was she like?”
“Lisa. Lisa Leanne Fischer. Thompson, originally. She was tiny. Five three in socks, a buck ten soaking wet. Somehow made short and lean look curvy. Blond hair, blue eyes. Firecracker. Girl was hell on wheels, man. All attitude and sarcasm. Funny as hell.” He sighs. “Most I’ve talked about her since she died. In therapy I tended to talk about how I was feeling, not her.”
“Have you…” I hesitate. “I dunno how to put what I’m trying to ask.”
“Just ask, Adrian. Won’t offend me.”
“How do you move on? Have you moved on?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think I have. I don’t know how. She was my first serious girlfriend. Dated for five years, junior year of high school to junior year of college for her, through my apprenticeship and journeyman carpentry programs for me. We eloped.” He laughs. “Her parents hated me. She was from money, like old South money. She didn’t want anything to do with it, so when they refused to bless the marriage, she said fuck ’em and we eloped. Drove to Vegas, got married by Elvis.”
“Legit?”
He snorts, laughs louder. “Yeah. Sober as a post, both of us. Then we got drunk and blew a couple grand at the blackjack tables and slot machines. Came home, got an apartment together, and that was life.” A long silence. “Then a semi driver fell asleep at the wheel, crossed the center line, crushed her little Camry like a can of Coke. Killed her instantly. She was on the way to meet me for dinner after work. Phone rang while I was sitting at our table, waiting.”
“Jeez, dude. I’m so sorry.”
He nods. “Thanks.” He shakes his head, then. “How do you move on, man? I went on a date, a few weeks ago. Girl I met at a coffee shop. I couldn’t handle it. How do you tell a girl you just met that you’ve got dead wife? When do you mention it? Second date? Third? You gotta explain why you’re so grumpy, closed off. But you tell her too soon, it freaks her out. Makes her think you’re trying to…replace her? I dunno. I think that, myself. How do I replace Lisa? I know in my head that I can’t, that I’m not going to do that. But tell that to my heart.” He throws back the rest of his whiskey. “It’s a tough row to hoe.”
