Greg cleared his throat before asking, “But not because you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me?”
The question and his voice struck me as both vulnerable and accusatory. Frowning at him, the rigid, unhappy set of his mouth, I leaned forward and placed my hand on his thigh.
“Honestly?”
“No. God no. Honesty is for the proletariat. Lie to me, of course.” He was trying to disarm the moment with humor, but despondency permeated his tone and his features.
“I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” I said, thinking at first that would be the entirety of my answer, but then—without forethought—I continued speaking. “That’s not really what happened, is it? How could I have known ‘the rest of my life’ didn’t really mean the rest of my life? Marriage, for us, means sometimes. Sometimes, over the course of the rest of our lives, I get to be with you.”
We watched each other, as much as was possible under the blanket of blue-black sky and twinkling stars. And the longer we swapped stares, the more wretched I felt.
Because my suspicion that sometimes no longer being enough solidified into a fact.
Sometimes wasn’t enough.
It hadn’t been enough for several years.
As though reading my mind, Greg said, “Just because we’re not in the same city doesn’t mean we’re not with each other.”
“Actually, it kinda does. Geography has a lot to do with being with a person.”
“But it’s not everything.”
“But it’s a lot. Looking back, I see a lot of me being alone. I see a lot of me without you. I see a lot of dinners for three, not four.”
He grimaced, packing up the remains of his rations. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”
“No. I’m pointing out that you’ve been missed. Being present is one hundred percent more meaningful than being there in spirit. You’ve been there in spirit for Grace’s first words and Jack’s first day of kindergarten. But when they look back, they’re going to remember the absence of you, of your tangible presence. You may have been thinking about them, but you’re not in the pictures.”
“What do you want me to do, Fe? Quit my job?”
I removed my hand from his leg and recited robotically, “You being happy makes me happy. Your job makes you happy.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. Yes, you love it. You love the difference you make in the world. You love making drilling safer and more efficient and the effect it has on the environment. You love doing something meaningful. And you’re good at it.”
“Then what? What’s the solution?”
“It is what it is,” I said rather than, It’ll just have to be enough.
“You know I hate that phrase, ‘It is what it is.’ The motto for indolent, phony do-gooders everywhere.”
“Yes. I know you hate it. But what else is there to say?”
“This isn’t acceptable to me.”
“What? What isn’t acceptable? You can’t be in two places at once.”
“No. You could say, ‘This isn’t acceptable to me.’ You’re becoming invisible under the weight of unhappiness and yet you say, ‘It is what it is’ like you’re powerless to change it.”
Directing my face away from him, I was thankful for the dark, for the veiled shadow of the moonless night. I considered his words, You’re becoming invisible under the weight of unhappiness.
Is that what is happening? Was I becoming invisible?
I didn’t particularly want to share the struggle going on within me. The angry voice was back, reminding me again that two months wasn’t enough. Two months would be better, but better didn’t necessarily equate to adequate. And adequate definitely didn’t equate to what I wanted . . . or what I needed.
“You’re a bloody ninja superwoman, and I’m just one of your many admirers,” Greg grumbled, pulling my attention back to him.
“Pardon me?”
“I said—” he started, but then stopped, straightening and twisting around toward the road.
I followed his line of sight and cursed under my breath.
Two cars were stopped on the opposite side of the road; men were shouting, both within the cars and outside of them. They’d left their beams on high, shining them into the concealing grasses.
The Jeep had been discovered.
“How did they see it? It’s pitch black out here.” His irritation was obvious.
“We’re going to have to run,” I said unnecessarily, more to get him moving than anything else.
“Okay. Okay. Let’s go.” He nodded and reached for my hand, like he needed reassurance I was still alive and well.
I held on to him tightly, thankful for the strength of his grip, finding I needed the physical connection just as badly as he.
***
Other than being exhausting, the next five hours were without incident.
We located the promised vehicle. The charger was under the driver’s seat. We were able to leave the outskirts of Enugu without any trouble, circumventing the main city by taking the bypass route and messaging Alex as soon as the phone held a charge.
Two hours into the southward drive, Greg took a gravel turnoff I would’ve missed in broad daylight.