He had such perfect diction, so New England, so educated. But he was never cruel with it, not on purpose, not like the infamous devastation his mother could wreak with a few cutting words, when people did not perform to her standards.
That had always been one of the things Kai loved about him so much: the way she could see his mother in him in a thousand small and big ways, and yet there was this kindness that was the very opposite of what his mother was known for, as if he had made a deliberate choice, in the face of great environmental odds, to be someone whose goodness was personal and direct and one-on-one, whose interactions were honorable and reliable and did no damage. All his choices had always been thought-out and conscious and deliberate, except that one choice—which wasn’t really a choice, was it? rather a thing that swept over a person’s life and changed it—to fall in love with her.
Her throat closed, and she couldn’t talk anymore. Not to him. Not ever again to him. She didn’t deserve him.
“You’ve lost so much weight,” Kurt said. “Haven’t you learned to love food again yet?”
No. She still could love its looks, the way she could get it absolutely right for a photograph, but that urge that had always kept those extra twenty pounds rounding her hips—to taste everything around her in those photo shoots, to tilt her head back and just sink into all those delicious flavors—had died. She had lost the people she cooked for casually—him, her friends, her family, all of whom she had fled—and so she had stopped cooking altogether. She hadn’t realized until she was getting by on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, alone, chewing mechanically, that enjoyment of food really depended on a belief in life and a belief that you could nourish it.
And who could believe in that?
All three of the pregnancies had left her so viciously nauseated, as if her body was some war zone, and she had always thought, if only she could have made peace with the food, if only she could have kept some of it down, things might have turned out differently, that getting her body to accept the food and getting her body to accept the pregnancy were the same thing. The doctors had said it didn’t work that way, that it wasn’t a mind-game she could control, but . . . the sense of failure and enmity remained. Food had let her down. Had betrayed her, when she least expected it. Had not nourished life.
“I wonder if I did the right thing, waiting,” Kurt said low, his hands curled in his pockets.
Her heart tightened. She took a breath and managed to speak, to release him from this hell: “If you’re worried about the snow, go ahead and go. You’re probably right, that they’re not coming.” She couldn’t blame him for wanting to get away before he got stuck for days alone with her. She had hurt him so much. The utter devastation of all that happiness he had found in her.
When Anne had succeeded in convincing him to come so that she could work on contracts and this winter wonderland magazine shoot at the same time, Kai had thought his agreement meant that he, too, had moved on. That he had managed to reduce his tears, too, to this half-frozen quiet inside him. That he was at a place where he could see her again and survive it. Maybe he had met that woman who would make him happy again and he wanted to broach the discussion on divorce.
She had tried hard to get ready for it, to be brave enough for it. She had reminded herself that she, too, had moved on, not to someone else—God, no, never again to open herself up that way—but to a calm, healed place. Or it had felt calm, it had felt healed, that cold slushy of grief had been almost comfortable, until he got there before everyone else did and she stood at the window watching him get out of his car, his long body moving with such controlled grace.
She set her equipment on the counter behind her, studying the snowfall of powdered sugar and its snowflakes. If Anne and her team weren’t coming, none of this really mattered, but she couldn’t let it go. She had to get it right. It was the only thing she had left to hold on to.
Silence stretched between them, the inside of the cabin as soft and as still as snow falling on an ancient forest. That silence was soothing. It was better. No, let’s not talk. Let’s make at least that one thing easier on both of us. You can just go, Kurt. It’s—it’s okay.
I’ll manage to survive it somehow. I’ve survived everything else.
Yes, one thing she had learned about herself that she had never known before: that she did, in fact, survive things she hadn’t thought she could possibly bear.
Kurt left the window, and she startled. Scarier still, he didn’t head out of the room but straight toward her. By the time he reached the other side of the island, her heart was beating so hard she thought she might be sick with it. Don’t try to kiss me good-bye or anything, Kurt. Not even on the cheek. Please don’t.
Don’t say anything, like, “Well, I hope you have a happy life.” Or, “Good-bye, Kai.” Please, please don’t.