And then I saw the truth: We didn’t know how to make each other happy.
I thought he knew what I needed. That I wanted to believe we were moving forward, that we’d grow up and out of this stage, that we’d build a life together that had some stability—but he didn’t. Or maybe he saw it but he couldn’t give it to me. All our fights, all our snips and groans and frosty mornings were over this simple fact. He wanted to make me happy, and I wanted him to be happy, and the two weren’t compatible.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think we can.”
“Jesus, Sabrina, what do you want?”
“I want us to be on the same page. And we’re not. We haven’t been in a long time.”
“So this is my—”
“No,” I said. “It’s not. It’s not anyone’s fault. But we do this all the time. We just keep poking and poking and poking each other. We don’t want the same things. We have never even talked about kids.”
“We haven’t even figured out how to get married,” he said. He ran a hand over his face. “Why can’t we ever take one thing at a time?”
“Because we don’t. We just stand still, and we resent each other for it.” It cut my heart right in two to say it out loud.
He got up and walked outside. I followed him. The sun had moved behind a cloud, and it was freezing. My coat was inside, looped over the back of my chair.
“I hate feeling this way and I hate making you feel this way. It’s fucking powerless.” He put his hands up to rest on the top of his head. “I’m not sure it’s supposed to be this hard.”
I felt my world come crashing down. I swear it was like the sun fell straight out of the sky.
“We can’t keep doing this to each other,” he said. I saw how much pain he was in. I saw the sting in his eyes. “I can’t keep doing this to you.”
I could feel the desperation in him, and I felt it, too. It began to mix with anger, flooding my fearful veins with rage. “Do it, then,” I said. I crossed my arms in front of me. I was shaking. “End it.”
“Sabby…”
“No,” I said. I was seeing stars. I knew the sadness would be too big, too wide—I didn’t want to feel it. The anger was shorter. Let me burn there.
He started to cry. “Maybe we just need to take some time apart,” he said.
I looked at him, dumbfounded. It felt like he had stabbed me with a sword and taken out my heart and lungs in one clean swipe. I said nothing. I looked down at my hands. On my finger was the ring. The beautiful, sweet, subtle ring. The one that was supposed to carry us through decades, not months. I reached over and with shaking fingers took it off. I couldn’t keep it. I couldn’t even look at it.
I handed it back to him. “Pawn it,” I said, my voice shaking. “You need the money.”
I walked back into Baba Louie’s, grabbed my coat, and walked out. We went back to the cabin, packed in silence, and then we drove back to the city. I stared out the window, my feet tucked up into my chest on the seat. I was too numb to cry.
“This isn’t a breakup,” he said. “It’s just some time. I just think we need to be alone for a bit. Don’t you? Sabby?”
I was scared of being without him, of course I was. But what terrified me more was him being without me—what he would find in that quiet. Whether it would be his happiness.
11:21 P.M.
AUDREY AND I ARE STILL OUTSIDE. I’ve smoked three cigarettes; she’s finishing her second.
“We should return,” she says, although neither one of us makes a move. I know that she’s right, that it’s time to go back inside, because time is almost up, and now that I know what to do, I need to do it.
Conrad appears at the door.
“My dears,” he says. “You’ll catch cold if you stay much longer.”
“Such a gentleman,” Audrey demurs. She puts her cigarette out on the window ledge. “Shall we?”
Conrad holds the door open and I follow Audrey inside.
“How was it out there?” Tobias asks. There is a hope in his voice, a childish lilt that makes my heart break, and I know it’s there because he thinks there’s a way out, that maybe Audrey and I uncovered it in the night air. How am I going to tell him there isn’t, that I can’t? That life isn’t like the movies we loved but something infinitely more complex?
I look to Jessica, but she’s still in the bathroom. Robert nurses his coffee.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Robert. I’ll start there.
He sets down his cup, startled.
“I’m sorry that it didn’t work out with Mom, and that you guys lost that baby, and that when you got well you couldn’t or didn’t come back, and that I never knew you. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to find you when I could, and that when I did, I left and didn’t go through with it. I don’t know if it would have helped, but I don’t want you to feel tortured anymore. I don’t think it’s helpful for you, nor do I think it’s helpful for me. I don’t want to carry around your regrets, and I think in some ways that’s what happened. I think I picked them up somewhere along the line, maybe to hate you, maybe to feel closer to you, I don’t know, but I know they’re too heavy for me now, and I have to give them back to you.”
Robert sits up straighter. I swear I think he’s going to hold out his hands.
“You don’t have to carry them, though,” I say. “Just because I’m giving them back. You can leave them here.”
Robert’s eyes well up with tears. “That would be all right,” he says.
I stand up from my chair, because I want to hug him. Not to make him feel better, but because I want to feel him. I have no memories of hugging my father. I imagine he held me when I was little, maybe even rocked me to sleep, but he never picked me up off the sidewalk when I scraped my knee or dusted off me after a fall from my bike. He didn’t carry me on his shoulders or up the stairs. Didn’t tackle me in the backyard during a game of touch football or let me climb onto his feet for a father-daughter dance. And I know I won’t get all that back, that there’s no way to, that it’s lost like the shells of the sea. But I want to feel what it’s like to be in his arms, to be loved by him, just once.
“Dad,” I say. He seems to know, and he stands up and embraces me. He smells like him, not like I remember, because I don’t, but like I expected him to, and this more than anything makes me cry into his shoulder. He puts one hand on my back and the other on my head. I know he’s done this many times before, with his girls, and I’m aware of the fact that we only get this one, this shot today. That’s it. Maybe it can’t make up for anything, but it can prevent some future pain, maybe even precipitate some peace.
He pulls back and holds me at arm’s length. “It wasn’t easy to do what you just did,” he says. “It shows what a strong woman you are. Your mother did well with you.”
I kiss his cheek. I wonder if he’ll remember this, wherever he goes to next. I think he will. I hope so.
I sit back down. Across the table Audrey and Conrad beam at me, like proud parents.
Jessica comes back to the table. “This thing takes forever when it doesn’t have a full charge,” she says, dropping the pump back into her bag. “What did I miss?”
Robert smiles at me. He looks stronger than he did earlier tonight, and it makes me feel proud, somehow.
“I think we should get the check,” I say.
Next to me, Tobias shifts. “What about us?” he asks.
Conrad pushes back his chair to get the waiter’s attention. Audrey’s eyes are fixed steadily on me.
I’m reminded of one of Jessica’s sayings, a magnet that stuck to our refrigerator for the duration of our time together.
All good things must come to an end.
“Baby,” I say. Something I haven’t said in so long. I take his hands in my own. Tears are streaming down my face before I even get the words out. “We have to let go. It’s time.”