Cameron cried softly. She always knew when he cried. She could always feel his pain inside her head and deep in her bones. She tasted his helplessness laced with peppermints. Part of her wanted to cradle him, but the biggest part, the worst part, wanted to make his pain as big as hers. Remembering was the way to do that.
When he pushed, she’d gotten mad. When he lit up, she attacked. Grabbing his last pack from the coffee table, she’d marched into the kitchen and crammed it down the garbage disposal. After she’d gotten out of the hospital, after Cameron’s funeral, when she went to use the appliance, it choked. She’d had to replace the damn thing, but never thought about how it had been broken in the first place.
“You never should have smoked in the house.”
“That’s what you said that night.” His voice wavered.
“And that was the last straw, wasn’t it?” Hunkered down on the floor as she was, the heels of her pumps dug into her butt. She kicked them off.
“You never did want to face the real problems, Max, always deflecting, always shutting down if I got too close to something you didn’t want to remember.”
“You wouldn’t have understood. You’d have told me to get over it.” He’d always told her to get over it even when he didn’t know what it was.
That night, as she’d chewed up his cigarettes, shutters fell over his eyes. She knew he was going to walk out like he had all the other times before. Go on, run away. And by the time you come back, we’ll both have forgotten all about it. She’d known she would. Only this time Cameron said he wasn’t coming back. She’d followed him into the bedroom where he’d dragged his leather bag from the closet—no, she hadn’t noticed it already contained a book and a gun—threw in his shaving kit, toothbrush, underwear, socks, the white shirts he wore to work, ties, cufflinks, and the damn tie pin his father gave him.
Max owned the memory but refused the bitterness and grief tearing through layers of tender flesh.
He’d walked out. That was that.
From the box at her knees, she pulled a rolled pair of socks and a shirt, still creased in the right places, yellowed with age, dust, and disuse. “I used to iron them for you every weekend. Like I did for my uncle when I was a kid.”
Had Wendy ironed Bud’s shirts, shined his shoes, folded his laundry?
“I never asked you to do any of that for me.”
“That’s because men never ask for anything. They expect it.” Everything was all so clear now. “That was your problem, Cameron. You always expected too much from me. You could never let me be. You were always trying to fix me.”
“You needed fixing.”
The room turned red, as if finally something had burst inside her head and tinged her eyes with blood. “Like I do now?”
“Yes, like now.”
She clutched the shirt to her chest. “Then why the hell don’t you leave like you did that night? Haven’t you figured out I’m not going to change?”
A tense silence. He broke it first. “That’s why I left back then.”
Her fingernails dug into the material. “Why the hell did you come back? I would have gotten over it if you’d left me alone.”
“You would have died.”
“Then we could have been together forever.” Her tone slashed, contradicting the words. “Is that what you’re afraid of? That I’ll be a millstone around your neck for eternity?”
“You’re a millstone around your own neck. All I’ve ever wanted is for you to heal. Face your past and heal yourself.”
“You fucking bastard.” She threw the clothing aside. “You were playing God. When it didn’t work, you left me. Don’t give me this noble crap. You ran out on me. And—” She cut herself off.
“Go on.”
She swallowed. “You ran out on me. And I followed you. To keep on fighting. To keep you.” Her chest constricted. “I parked in the lot, I went in ... and they shot you. Just like that. In a second. Before I could say a word.”
There’d been no chance to make things right between them. To say she’d change. She ...
“Don’t stop now.” His voice dropped to a whisper in her head.
She clenched her teeth to stop the prick of tears in her nose, her eyes. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”
“But you couldn’t.” He paused. She thought he was giving her breathing room. He wasn’t. “And who did you blame for that?”
Her lungs collapsed beneath the pressure of his question.
“Who did you blame?” A master of the right word, he carved away her resistance.
Blame. Who did you blame when you couldn’t take the responsibility yourself? The one you loved.
“I blamed you.” Oh God. “I was glad you got what you deserved for leaving me.”
His essence flowed around her, trying to fill the bottomless pit inside her. “You see, Max, you chose to forget the worst. Like you always do. None of the rest of it was as bad as that, was it?”