Page 13 of The Next Of Us
We had loved.
Giving in to my fatigue, I leaned my forehead against the passenger side window.I loved my husband so utterly and completely it never occurred to me we could end up in this place.
The past year had been neither easy nor pretty.As soon as we buried my mom, I dropped like a rock.
This wasn’t my first dance with this demon, but this time the song seemingly had no end.
And Aaron was either increasingly clueless or staggeringly indifferent.
Even the kids noticed the faraway look in his eyes when they came home to visit.
I couldn’t make excuses for him any longer.
And I didn’t want to.
Aaron
We should have left hours ago, but Nadine couldn’t leave Carlos in the lurch at such short notice.When she suggested waiting until the next morning, I balked.
I couldn’t stay in that house one more night.
What if she changed her mind?
What if the echo of her request for a separation became so loud we could no longer ignore it?
Every cell in my body willed me to reach out and take my wife’s hand but I couldn’t risk it.It was all I could do to keep my attention on the ice-patched road and get us up to the cabin in Moose Lake in one piece.
That was a half-truth at best.I feared a repeat of the night before when she refused to take my hand.The one source of strength I had left, my certainty of her love for me, crumbled.
Max pulled me aside weeks ago, offering to talk things through, but I couldn’t even think about it, never mind give it voice.And Max didn’t know about the emails yet.I wanted to keep it that way.
I’d been hesitant when Max asked me to join his practice, wondering how a sleepy little town the size of Sage Ridge could support yet another therapist.After a few weeks I marveled that Max and the others in town had managed to hold up under the strain of the demand.
Domestic abuse, addiction, depression, and anxiety wrapped themselves around the four pillars of family, faith, community, and recreation that held up our town.
I never regretted becoming a social worker, never second-guessed partnering with Max.My work was important and had always fulfilled me.So, why the hankering for a career change right when Max was readying to retire and needed me the most?
Self-disgust burned my guts.I needed to get my head on straight, and soon.Max and my mom had planned to retire and travel extensively now that the grandkids were grown.After everything they’d done for me, Nadine, and our kids, they deserved it.
My issues could not be the thing to fuck up their plans.
I should have talked it out with Max right away before the poison took hold, eating me alive from the inside.I had to let it out, but the taste of the words leaving my mouth whenever I tried made me gag.
This weekend I would push through and tell Nadine what happened.It wasn’t fair to leave her in the dark thinking she was the problem.
She was pulling away and curling into herself.Protecting her tender heart.From me.God, that stung.
It killed me to let her down.
My chest tightened.
It killed me to let all of them down.
6
Never
Nadine
