Page 36 of The Next Of Us
Hopefully, her list might trigger my own because I wasn’t any further ahead.I had a list of what I didn’t want, but that hardly constituted a plan.
Taking advantage of the sunshine, we walked home the long way.
Once inside, Nadine kicked off her boots, handed me her coat, and made her way to the kitchen.“I don’t care what you say, I’m making hot chocolate.”
“Go ahead.Make me one, too.I can’t wait to hear your list.”
“You’re going to be disappointed.”
I hung up my coat and closed the closet.“Why’s that?”Swinging into the kitchen, I pulled up a chair and waited for her to sit down.
She sat down beside me with her ever-present day timer.“Because I don’t have that much.”
Opening it to the back, she spun it around to face me.
I scanned her list quickly then returned to the top to go over it more carefully before sitting back in my seat.
“I told you,” she said quietly, pressing her lips together in a tight smile.
“I’m not disappointed.How could I be?Everything on this list includes me.”
I paused because while that was good and sweet and affirming of her love for me, I needed her to want more.How else could I take what I needed without guilt when it would mean tearing apart everything she ever wanted.
“Every single thing on this list includes me.”
“I know,” she admitted quietly.“I’m having a really hard time imagining anything for me apart from you.”She shrugged.“I did it, Aaron.I went to Paris, I cooked in a top restaurant, and I’m glad I did it, but in the end, it wasn’t sustainable.”
I opened my mouth to speak but she cut me off.
“And it’s still not sustainable for the same reasons as back then.I don’t want us to be two ships passing in the night.I devoted myself to that career, then I devoted myself to our kids, and I regret neither.But I don’t want the same things I did back then.I want tolivelife with you.Together.”
“Why did you take a job with Carlos?”
“Because I was bored.”
“And you won’t be bored with the garden center eventually?”
She turned her face away and took a deep breath.Her eyes skittered back and forth, thinking.
I waited patiently.I knew my wife.She needed time to process.
“I lost my dad, then my mom, while both of our children have, for the most part, moved out.”A tear rolled down her cheek.“And then I thought I lost you,” she hiccupped, grief strangling her voice.
“Baby,” I whispered.
She shook her head.“No.I’m okay.It’s mostly hormones making me emotional.All I’m saying is that I can’t think of what I want to do for myself when my foundation is shaking.”She shook her head sharply.“I’m not saying you’re my foundation, but our marriage, our family, this whole life we built, is.If that’s falling apart, it’s a little hard to think of anything else.”
“I promise we’re not falling apart.”
Her watery eyes met mine.“The thing is, Aaron, no matter how many years we have together, it’s never going to be enough for me.And I don’t want to waste time chasing after a dream that will take more of me than I’m willing to give.Do you know what I mean?I want you.I want us.A lot more of us.Then, whatever is left, I’ll give to a new dream.”
The walls began to close in on me.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m averse to change.If you want something else, something more, or something different, I support that.I want you to be happy.”
I dropped my chin.
Because my wife knew me as well as I knew her.
