Page 65 of Operation Annulment
I am less aware of the landscape and more focused on the man operating the vehicle. He navigates the rocky path like he was born to do it.
Nate drives until I can no longer see the house. We pull up to another large barn surrounded by nothing but fields, and he kills the engine. I pull my helmet off and look around. “What do you keep out here?”
He takes his helmet off and runs his hand through his hair. “It’s mostly farm equipment. It was my favorite place as a kid, though. Come on.”
I take his hand, and we walk inside. It doesn’t look like there’s much to see, but he walks with purpose to the back of the barn. Then, I see the wooden ladder leading up to a loft.
“I used to climb up here as a kid. It was quiet, and I could read without anyone bothering me.”
“Did you read medical textbooks and dream of being a doctor?” I tease.
He gives me a guilty grin. “Nah. Mostly, my dad’sPlayboymagazines. Do you want to see it? The loft, not the magazines.”
I swat his arm and climb up the rickety ladder. He follows close behind. There’s an old hay bale positioned to block the view of anyone walking in below and an old quilt covering the plywood floor.
“I like it. It’s warm up here, too.” I take off my jacket and set it aside before sitting on the quilt.
He nods. “Yeah, my dad has an office below this that he keeps heated during winter. In the summer, it’s not nearly as enjoyable.”
I watch Nate as he describes everything, his hands becoming moreanimated. I don’t know that I’ve ever observed him in his element. As he talks, I notice the cassette player in the corner, and he grins.
“You want to hear it, don’t you?”
I smirk. “Well, obviously. I need to get the full loft experience, don’t you think?”
He plugs the tape player in and hits play. The song is familiar, but I couldn’t tell you the band’s name. “Is it KISS?”
Nate’s mouth drops open in shock. “Please tell me you’re joking? This is Foreigner, one of the greatest bands of our time. How do you not know this song? Urgent? Come on, Katy girl.” He sings a few bars.
“Well, I am pretty young. So, tell me something I don’t know about you. This loft was made for secrets—give me one of yours.”
He cocks his head to the side, suddenly serious again. “What do you want to know?”
I settle in against the warm floor. “Everything. I want it all.”
“Okay. Even the parts about Jess?”
My smile fades, but I nod. “Especially those parts because they made you who you are.”
“Okay, Katy girl, it’s time you heard the whole story. I met Jess in a bar when I was twenty-two. I went home with her under the guise of losing my virginity, but I didn’t have any serious plans for a relationship. I was supposed to graduate and move to Seattle in a few short months. Well, I graduated, and Jess got pregnant.
“She tried pushing me to go to Seattle, but I stayed. I stayed and married her. I was young and naïve; I just didn’t see any other options. A few months after we got married, she lost the baby. My life was chaotic at that point, though, as it was my first year of med school. I was more relieved than anything. I wanted to quit so many times along the way. I just felt like I was disappointing her at every turn by not being home much—hence, why I most likely have a god complex.” He pauses to stare into the dim barn, the ghosts from his past very much visible to him.
I place my hand on his arm. “If this is too hard, we don’t have to?—”
He shakes his head. “No. I want to tell you. I did my residency inDallas, so we rarely saw each other. I’d beg her to spend a weekend with me, but she always seemed to have something come up.
“I made the mistake of coming home a week early and caught her. The guy she brought home was just one of many. After our divorce, she even went after her best friend’s husband. That was the guy you met at the gym.”
The story pricks my memory, and I interrupt him. “Was this story ever on the news?”
Nate looks puzzled. “I don’t think so. I mean, our divorce was listed in the court section of the paper, but nothing that would have made headlines.”
I try to organize my thoughts into a sentence. “I have this patient, Carla, who went through something almost completely identical. It just doesn’t make any sense. Would Jess have told people about it?”
“Anything’s possible. Maybe Carla gets her hair cut by Jess? People have done stranger things for attention.”
I nod, still feeling like I’m missing something.
