Things We Didn't Say

Chapter 40

Casey



I walk into our room, and Michael’s holding a letter.

Oh, God. The letter.

“Mike . . . ,” I begin.

“You were going to walk out on me in the middle of this?”

“No, I wasn’t. I—”

“Then what the hell is this?”

“Let me . . .” I put my hand to my still throbbing head. I sink down to the edge of the bed. “Let me explain.”

“Try me.”

I can’t see him from here, but I bet he’s folding his arms. He always does that when he’s mad. He looks like an angry school principal in that stance.

“I wrote that Thursday morning. Before we got the call that Dylan didn’t go to school.”

“So why are you still here?”

“Because I was worried.”

I dare to face him. His beard stubble makes his face look dirty. He’s frowning deeply, but there’s something in the softness of his eyes that tells me he’s more hurt than angry, and that does me in worse than any insults he could hurl.

“But I changed my mind. I don’t want to go.”

“You sound pretty convinced, here.” He shakes the paper, then begins to read aloud. “Don’t,” I say, but he raises his voice to speak over mine. My own words boomerang back at me, overly loud and deep, Michael’s voice projecting like he’s onstage.

“ ‘Dear Michael, I know I’m a coward for doing this in writing. Something’s been wrong for a long time now. I don’t feel like you really see me anymore, except when I screw something up.’ ”

Michael emphasizes the “see” and carries on, oblivious to the fact that I’m curling up on the bed, trying to shrink down and vanish.

“ ‘And instead of getting closer to the kids, my moving in has only driven them further away. Even Jewel treats me like a funny aunt, but still wants her mom home. This kills me to leave. I wanted a life with you, with them. But this is not my house, my bed, my family. I’m in someone else’s space and I don’t fit right. This is probably because you don’t know everything about me, and for that I’m sorry. I thought not saying certain things out loud would make my past extinct, but it doesn’t work that way. It’s all still there, and I’m still me, no matter how much I try otherwise. Tell the kids I’m sorry and I love them, whether they believe it or not. I wish I could have been the girl you thought I was. I’m sorry. A thousand times.’ ”

At this he lets the letter flutter down to the bed.

What am I supposed to say now? I’ve said it all.

“But you’ve changed your mind,” Michael says, sounding like a reporter now. “What exactly has changed in forty-eight hours? Did I suddenly start seeing you enough? Did you suddenly become the girl I thought you could be?”

“I was having a weak moment.”

“No. A weak moment is feeling bad for fifteen minutes. Walking out the door without a word is . . .” He drops his arms from their locked and folded position, drooping at the shoulders. “I can’t afford weak moments that result in you taking off. Did you know I lost my job yesterday?”

“What?”

“You know it’s bad when losing your job isn’t the headline of the day.”

I start to stand up and go to him, but he stiffens at my approach. He holds up a hand.

“I can’t do it. Not knowing if one day you’ll get fed up and leave. Or get drunk. Or reveal some dire secret.”

“That was—”

“Just once. You were stressed. Guess what? Parenting is stressful every single goddamn day.”

“So what, then?”

“Can I count on you?”

“Of course.”

“No. Not ‘of course’ without thinking. Not the answer you are supposed to give. The truth.”

His cold logic freezes me. How do I know I won’t want to leave tomorrow? How do I know I can stay off the booze? He still doesn’t know all there is to know about me.

And then there’s this: the shouting, and the lecturing, and his rigid unforgiving face. Where is the kind, tender father who stroked his daughter’s back that day we met at the clinic? He used to share some of that tenderness with me.

I wish he would again, but that seems past hope, now.

Michael shakes his head. He walks around the bed, back to the bedroom door. I lunge across the bed and reach for his hand, but only manage to brush his limp fingers before he disappears from my view.