He stopped trimming but didn’t turn to face me. “Just get in the car. It’s important to your mom.”
I did as I was told and when I asked where we were going, my mom told me to head toward the fire station.
Still confused, I did as I was told and when we were getting close, she suddenly told me to turn right; two blocks later, she directed me to take a left. By then, even I knew where she wanted me to go, and we pulled to a stop next to a gate that was bordered on either side by wooded lots. Before us stood the water tower, and when my mom got out of the car, I followed her.
For a while, she said nothing to me.
“Why are we here, Mom?”
She tilted her head, her eyes seeming to follow the ladder that led to the landing near the top.
“I know what happened,” she said. “When Tracey and Marge broke up. I know she was brokenhearted and that you met her here. You were still a child, but somehow, you talked her down and brought her back to the dorms.”
I swallowed my denials, something easier said than done. Nothing I could say would matter; this was my mom’s show.
“Do you know what it’s like to think that my daughter might have died here? When she told me, I remember wondering to myself why she hadn’t called me or your dad. But I know the answer to that, too. You two share something wonderful, and I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. We may not have been the best parents, but at least we raised you both right.”
She continued to stare at the water tower. “You were in so much trouble, but you never said anything to us. About where you’d been that night. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
I saw a deep sadness in her expression as she turned toward me. “You have a gift,” she said. “You feel so deeply and you care so much. And that’s a wonderful thing. That’s why you knew exactly what to do with Marge. You took her pain and made it your own, and now you’re trying to do the same thing with me.”
Though she trailed off, I knew that more was coming.
“I know you think you’re helping, but no matter what you do, you can’t take my sadness away. But you are making yourself miserable. And that breaks my heart, and I don’t want you to do that. I’m getting through this one day at a time, but I don’t have the strength to have to worry about you, too.”
“I don’t know if I can stop worrying about you.”
She touched my cheek. “I know. But I want you to try. Just remember that I’ve made it through one hundred percent of the worst days of my life so far. Just like your dad, and Marge. And, of course, you have, too. And how we get through them is one day at a time.”
Later that night, I thought about what my mom had told me. She was right, of course, but what I didn’t know was that as challenging as life had sometimes been, the worst days were still yet to come, and they would be the worst of all.
Nine thousand, three hundred and sixty minutes.
That was how long it had been—well, approximately, anyway—since my world turned upside down, and to me, it felt as though I’d been hyperaware of the passage of every single one of them. Every one of these minutes in the past week had passed with agonizing slowness, as I seemed to be experiencing them with every cell in my body, every tick of the clock.
It was Monday, September fourteenth. A week ago, Vivian had left me. I continued to dwell on her obsessively, and the night before, I’d had trouble sleeping. Going for a run helped, but by the time I’d returned, I’d lost my appetite. In the last week, I’d dropped another seven pounds.
Stress. The ultimate diet.
Even as I made the phone call, I think I already knew what I was going to do. I told myself I simply wanted to know where Vivian would be traveling this week, but that wasn’t true. When the receptionist at Spannerman answered, I asked to be connected to Vivian and reached a woman named Melanie who identified herself as Vivian’s assistant. I didn’t know my wife even had an assistant, but apparently there was much I didn’t know about her, or maybe, had never known at all.
I was told that Vivian was in a meeting and when Melanie asked my name, I lied. I told her that I was a local reporter and wanted to know whether she would be around this week to speak. Melanie informed me that Vivian would be in the office today and tomorrow, but after that, she would be out of the office.
I then called Marge and asked if she would pick up London from school and later, bring her to dance. I told her that I was going to see my wife, but that I would be home later tonight.
Atlanta was four hours away.
I’m not sure how I imagined my surprise visit might go. In the car, one prediction replaced the next. All I knew was that I had to see Vivian; there was a part of me that hoped the hard-edged exterior she offered to me on the phone would melt away in my presence and we would find a way to salvage our relationship, our family, the life I still wanted to live.
My stomach clenched in knots as I drove, evidence of a simmering anxiety that made the drive more difficult than it should have been. Thankfully, traffic was relatively light, and I reached the outskirts of Atlanta at a quarter to twelve. Fifteen minutes later, with my nerves jangling hard, I found the new Spannerman building and pulled into the parking lot.
I found a space in the visitor section but hesitated before getting out of the car. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call her and tell her I was downstairs? Should I enter the building and show up at the reception desk? Or storm past the reception and confront her in the office? The countless variations on our conversation that I had imagined on the drive always began with me sitting across from her at a table in a restaurant, not with the steps that led up to that point.
My mind, I knew, wasn’t quite up to par these days.
Vivian would certainly prefer that I call; that way she could perhaps put me off entirely. For that reason, showing up inside seemed preferable, but what if she was in a meeting? Would I leave my name and sit in the waiting room, like a kid who’d been called in to meet the school principal? I wanted to head straight for her office, but I had no idea where it was, and something like that would cause a scene, which might even be worse.
I forced myself from the car as I continued to ponder my choices. All I knew for sure was that I needed to stretch my legs and use the restroom. Spotting a coffee shop across the street, I jaywalked through the stalled traffic to reach the other side. When I left the coffee shop and crossed the street again, I made the decision to call Vivian from the building lobby. That’s when I saw them—Spannerman and Vivian in a brown Bentley, getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, onto the street. Not wanting them to see me, I edged closer to the building and ducked my head. I heard the roar of the engine as it finally pulled out, inching its way into traffic.
Even though I didn’t have much of a plan in the first place, the little I did have was going up in smoke. Despite the lack of appetite, I supposed I could grab a bite to eat and try to catch up with her in an hour or so, which seemed preferable to waiting around, and I started back to my car.
Pulling out of the lot, I noticed that the traffic had barely moved and I could still see the Bentley about eight cars ahead of me. Beyond it, I saw there was some construction going on; an eighteen-wheeler loaded with steel girders was backing onto a work site and the traffic on the street had ground to a halt.
When the truck cleared the road, traffic started moving again. I followed along, conscious of the Bentley in front of me, watching as it made a right turn. I felt like a spy—or rather, a creepy private investigator—when I took the turn as well, but I told myself that since I wasn’t going to confront them at lunch or do anything crazy, it wasn’t a big deal. I just wanted to know where they were eating—I wanted to know something about the new life my wife was leading—and that was normal, something anyone would do.