Save Me (18 page)

“Daph, I understand. But I think that what happened, all of it—and all of it my fault, I own it—was just a symptom of a larger problem. A larger,
solvable
problem.”

“Which is?”

“That we took each other for granted.”

“I agree with you,” I concede. “We didn’t prioritize our relationship at all. But what about Bridget, Owen? You still haven’t answered me. What if she were still here?”

He turns away and looks out the window.

“I know how much you cared about her.” I gulp the words out. “And I think this could be a reaction to her death, Owen. You feel alone. You’re mourning her loss. You can’t—” My mouth’s gone dry. “I can’t let you make me your fallback because she’s gone now.”

He turns back to me. “She was never going to replace you, Daphne,” he says. “I cared about her, that’s true, and I can’t believe that she’s gone. But what happened between her and me was never going anywhere. That sounds like a disrespectful thing to say now, I know. But it’s the truth, Daphne. I said as much in that email I sent to you.”

I think of the line from the email:
I am drowning in regret over the decision I made.

“I meant every word of it, Daphne,” he says, walking to me. “I regretted everything, and I
know
that you don’t need to hear this, and I’m ashamed to admit it, but once she was in the accident, I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to stick it out.” He shakes his head. “I know how selfish it sounds, but I already felt like scum for what I did to you, and the thought of then doing that to her when she was going through what she was going through… I knew I’d made a big mistake. I
knew it
. I
promise
that this isn’t just a reaction to what’s happened. When you told me to stay away after Bridget called you, it decimated me. You were so angry, and rightfully so. I knew that what I’d done had cost me our marriage.”

“Why the hell did you let her call me anyway?” I ask. “That was so bizarre.”

“I didn’t know she was going to. I left her room to get a coffee and when I came back, she was already dialing your number. She got it off my phone.”

I turn and go back to the pantry for the dustpan, if only because I can’t stand to look at him. My skin feels like it’s on fire. I feel awful and I’m certain it has nothing to do with whatever hit me last night. “I don’t know how to move on together, Owen,” I say as I walk back into the room.

“You really don’t?” he says.

“I don’t know how to trust you again,” I say. “I still don’t know what your relationship with her really was. You told me that it was sex and that it was just the one time but that obviously wasn’t the case.”

He scratches the back of his head and nods. “You’re right.”

“So what was it?”

He pauses, taking in a big gulp of air. “It was a friendship,” he finally says.

“A
friendship
?” I blink back the tears that are starting to well up in my eyes. “Owen, you owe me more than that.”

He runs his hands through his hair and leans against the island. “It was a flirtation at first but it grew into a deeper friendship. And then one day soon after New Year’s, after we came back from Virginia, she asked me to have a drink with her.”

“And you’d missed her, over the holidays?” I ask.

He bites his lip. “It’s not important now.”

“It is, though,” I say.

“I had missed her.”

I nod. “It wasn’t just the one time, was it?”

His eyes meet mine for a split second before he looks away. “It was a few times,” he says. “And after the last time, I knew that she and I were starting to head down a road that we couldn’t, and that’s when I told you. I needed to sort out what I was feeling and why I was doing something that I never thought I was capable of. I felt like shit for what I’d done. I never wanted to hurt you. I needed the time on my own to figure out why I’d done it, Daph, not to continue sleeping with her. That was over. I swear.” He wipes his nose and I realize that he’s starting to cry, too. “I’ll do anything, Daphne. I know I don’t deserve it but I want another chance.”

I glance around the kitchen, the heart of the home that we built together. I am now the only obstacle keeping us from moving forward, and if I just say it—
Let’s try again
—I can have everything the way that I always intended it to be. I think of our vows:
For better or for worse. Till death do us part.

“Does any part of you still love me?” he asks.
To love, honor, and cherish.

I rest my forehead against the broom, my hands clasped over the handle, and close my eyes. “I love the you that I thought you were,” I say.

“Daphne, I’m still that person.”

“Owen,” I say, finally letting myself really look at him. “You have no idea how badly I want to believe you.”

I can see the disappointment come over his face. “So where do we go from here?” he says, his voice barely audible.

“I don’t know,” I say, resting the broom against the counter. “But I think you should move out, at least for a while.”

“You need time,” he says.

I nod. “I do.”

I
feel crazy. I can’t make a decision. Every time I look at him, I see her. Every time he looks at me, I see yearning. And so rather than be at home, where this thing is a monster, forcing me to examine it, I distract myself with Andrew. My personal board of advisors—Annie, Lucy, and my mother—agree that this is the best option.

We go out to dinner. We see an action movie. We stroll through Duke Gardens, Andrew pointing at various clumps of blooms as we walk and asking me to name them. We meet at a brewery downtown for beers. There’s a bit more kissing—occasional, not serious, nothing more. I don’t talk about Owen and he doesn’t ask.

We get to know each other, and I find myself talking about things I haven’t thought about in years. I tell him about my misguided attempt at cheerleading tryouts during my senior year of high school, when I decided, for a few weeks, that I wanted to be a bit more like Lucy. We talk about our college experiences and how different they were—mine, a small liberal arts school in New England not unlike the one that Owen went to, and his, a behemoth football-obsessed state school in the South. We connect over small, silly things: our mutual love for
Saturday Night Live
’s early years, our mutual disgust for sour cream. He grew up climbing trees, loves baseball. He didn’t go to summer camp. Being with him makes me feel happy, even light, like his company is slowly rubbing off the tarnish of what happened to me.

Annie and I meet for a drink at Six Plates, a cozy wine bar with velvet furniture and soft lighting that is perfect for this unusually chilly night and my pensive mood.

“The fact that Owen wants to start over should make me feel better,” I say, finally confessing some of the thoughts that have been buzzing between my ears. “It’s what I should want to hear, isn’t it?”

“Daphne,” she says, plucking a sliver of cheese off the slate slab between us. “You know that the last thing I’m going to tell you is to trust a word out of his mouth. That’s what my mother did—made promise after promise and broke every one.”

“But why would he say the things he has if he didn’t mean them?” I ask.

She laughs. “If I had the answer to that, I could’ve saved myself thousands of dollars in therapy. Listen, I speak from experience: You cannot trust him.”

“But he’s my husband.”

“And my mother was
my mother
.”

I nod, slowly spinning my wineglass by its stem.

“Is he moving out?”

“I told him that I thought it would be a good idea, for now at least. He’s supposed to go look at some rentals next week.”

“Do you feel good about that?”

I shake my head and shrug. “I don’t know.”

“It will probably help,” she says.

“We’ll see,” I say. “What I really need is a break from all of this. I need to get out of town. I need a spa trip, an ashram retreat, wide-open space, anything. I want to be like
that
,” I say, nodding toward a table of what I assume to be a certain type of Duke graduate student—they look wealthy, worldly, and far more sophisticated than I was at twenty-two. There are many, many bottles of wine on the table between them, plates and plates of food. They are laughing loud, celebrating something. “If I could just stop thinking,” I say.

“Well, I won’t argue with that,” Annie says. “You don’t have to scrutinize every little thing.”

I make a face like I’m offended. “Right, because that’s easy for me.” I stick out my hand as if to introduce myself. “Daphne Mitchell, nice to meet you.”

She chuckles. “Why don’t you call Andrew?”

“I should,” I say. “I owe him a call.”

She nods once and pushes my phone toward me. “You need more therapeutic kissing,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Right.” I confessed to her last week. “By the way, did I tell you that Owen brought me flowers two days ago? Daffodils and daisies, left on the kitchen counter for me to find after work.”

“Was there a card attached?
Sorry for ruining our marriage?
” she says.

“No, there wasn’t,” I say. “But he’s trying.”

“He called a florist, Daphne.”

I tick-tock my head back and forth, considering it. “Yeah. I know.”

She leans toward me. “You’re too smart to let yourself get duped by him.”

“Evidence would suggest otherwise.” I take another sip of my wine. “Anyway, Andrew. Do you know what he said the other night?”

“What?”

“He said that doing his job well means enabling people to have the fantasy that we all want when we stay in a hotel—to be coddled, to escape real life. It occurred to me when he said it that that’s exactly what he’s doing for me. Do you think he realizes it?”

She shrugs. “Does it matter?”

I grab my phone and hop off the barstool. “I’ll be right back.”

I walk outside intending to call Andrew but once I’m there, standing out on the bar’s patio, I find that what I really want is a few moments to myself, away from Annie’s well-intentioned, but nevertheless relentless, advice. I put my phone in my pocket and wrap my sweater tightly around myself, breathing in the cool, crisp air. It is torture to have this decision be my singular burden to carry. I don’t want any action I take toward Owen to be a reaction to what he’s said. I’ll admit that there is a component to this that is about him earning it. He needs to understand that I can’t forget. And even if it happens as simply as it could—I ask him back, snap my fingers, marriage resumes—there is work to do. We need to figure out how this happened. We need to fix things so that it doesn’t happen again. I need to know that a hundred horrific thoughts won’t ping into my brain every time he works late or takes a call in another room or walks out the door on his own.

I don’t know, which is not a comfortable place for me to be. It never has been.

The other night, I was sitting in the backyard, my toes in the grass, sipping my wine, when I watched a plane carve a gentle arc across the sky in the far distance. It reminded me of my mother, who can’t get on a plane unless she’s heavily medicated, and a neighbor we had growing up who was a pilot. At a neighborhood Christmas party one year, I overheard him tell her that if she’s on a plane and there’s turbulence, she should ask for something to drink, put it on the tray table, and watch. The liquid will hardly move, which should calm her because it will prove that the bumps she feels aren’t actually that bad. What Owen did to me is unquestionably abysmal, but I asked myself, watching the plane become a fading dot and then disappear, Does it have to destroy me from the inside out? Is it really unforgivable, or is this—the jolting terror that
seems
like the end—actually what we’ve needed to right ourselves? Maybe it’s nothing to be scared of? A blessing, even.

I don’t know how to say this to Owen yet. I want to figure out the exact right words. And so, following one of my father’s many idiosyncratic life rules, I’ve decided to wait out this dilemma and hope that an answer comes to me. Or, as Dad would say,
When in doubt, don’t.

The fact is, Owen wants us back. And that tiny confirmation is enough to hold me bobbing, head above water, for the time being.

I
have spent my entire Saturday morning cleaning. I have fluffed the throw pillows on the couch. I have folded the dish towel next to the sink into a precise rectangle. There is a new bottle of hand soap in the powder room.

Owen is going to be at the hospital for most of the weekend. None of the rentals he’s seen has panned out yet but I’m hopeful that this will be the week. And thankful that work will keep him out of the house in the meantime.

I go to my closet, put on a pair of heels, and then halfway down the stairs, I take them off. Who wears their nice shoes around the house?

When Andrew arrives, I open the door before he has a chance to ring the bell. Blue, one step behind me, sniffs up and down his legs. He bends to scratch the top of her head.

“This is Blue,” I say, gently tugging her away by her collar so that she’ll give him a break.

“Blue?” he says. “What’s the significance?”

“Like the Joni Mitchell album.”

“Are you a Joni Mitchell fan?” he says.

“Nope. I actually can’t stand her,” I say, waving him in. I’ve never said it out loud before.

“A Case of You” was on the jukebox on the day Owen and I reunited with each other at the start of residency. It’s a song that I loathe,
always
loathed, but when it came on in the bar where we ended up for drinks, it was in the hazy, dopey hour when we realized that this was going to lead somewhere.
“What are the chances that the two of us, out of all of the people in the world, would find each other again?”
we marveled over our beers.
“That we would both choose to become doctors! And then both pick the same place for residency! And then both decide on the same afternoon, at the same time, to pick up a sandwich at the same restaurant!”
One month later, on the one-month anniversary we were young and sappy enough to celebrate, Owen played the song when he surprised me with a candlelit picnic, replete with sandwiches from the place, and I didn’t have it in me to tell him how much I hate Joni Mitchell. I decided that I’d hold my secret, even years later, when his eyes lit up as he suggested it for our new puppy’s name. I figured that at least we weren’t naming her Joni. I could pretend that the Blue stood for something else—the ocean, the sky, the pond at his grandparents’ house. It didn’t matter, what was important was what it stood for, which was our history, which was unshakable at the time, to me.

“Your house is amazing,” Andrew says, walking slowly down the hall, taking in the wall of windows at the back, the original moldings, the oak floors now so clean they shine.

“Come on in,” I say, walking ahead of him.

“So this is the kitchen.” I wave my hands around like I’m on one of those home makeover shows.

“Ohhhhh, a
kitchen
,” he jokes.

“I guess it’s obvious,” I say.

He leans on the countertop, and something about the gesture, so casual and meaningless, suddenly makes me uncomfortable about having him here. It feels out of context in an alarming way, like I’ve cut-out collaged one part of my life and pasted him where he doesn’t belong. Even though I know that Owen won’t be home until very late tonight, I can’t help but feel on edge, like I’m doing something dishonest and dangerous and I’m going to get caught.

I am not doing anything wrong
, I remind myself.

I flitter into the living area. “Here’s the living room,” I say. “Do you say den? Family room? People say different things.”

“Den, I think,” he says, grinning at me, amused.

“And, out there—that’s the back porch.”

“Your green thumb is in evidence,” he says, peeking through the glass-paned door at the herb garden I planted in large terra cotta pots by the steps.

“Yeah,” I look around the first floor. “I guess you don’t need to see the laundry room. The bathroom is over there,” I point.

He takes a step toward me. “This is weird for you, isn’t it?”

“No, no,” I say, my voice high and completely unconvincing.

He raises an eyebrow. “You sure?”

I bite my lip. “It’s a little weird. I never imagined that I’d have someone here.”

“Someone
else
,” he says, scrunching his nose.

“Yeah.” I take a deep breath and pull away just as he’s about to put his arm around me. I don’t want his arm around me. Not now. Not here. “It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.”

I walk back toward the kitchen. “You know what? Forget it. Forget that I said anything. Do you want something to drink? A beer?” I say, opening the door. I realize that my hands are shaking.

“I’m okay,” he says. “In a little while.”

“Let’s go out back,” I say. “To the patio.”
Maybe if we go outside…

“You got it,” he says.

“I’m not taking you outside because it’s too weird to be inside, just for the record,” I say, smiling.

“I know,” he laughs. “Daphne, it’s fine.”

“You know what?” I say, my hand on the doorknob, one foot halfway out the door. “Forget it. Let’s stay in here.”
I know how crazy I seem, it’s just…settle down,
I tell myself.

“Okay.” He laughs, less surely now, walking backward as he says it. I wouldn’t blame him if he continued right out the front door and into his car.

“Let me show you the rest of the house.” I walk to the stairs. Actually, it’s more like marching. “Come on,” I say, waving him toward me.

He follows behind. I can’t tell whether he’s entertained by the way I’m acting or alarmed.

“This is the guest room,” I say once we’re upstairs, walking past Owen’s room, the door halfway open, the floor littered with his laundry. “Excuse the mess, I have a guest,” I say over my shoulder, attempting a laugh. He fortunately laughs with me.

“This is my office,” I say, walking into the center of the room and slicing my arms through the air.

“It’s great,” he says. “Love the windows.” He points to the view of the rolling hills outside.

“Who’s this?” he says, picking up a framed photo of Lucy on my bookshelf. “Your sister?”

“That’s the one.”

“She looks about like I thought she would,” he says. In the picture, from college, she is posing like a magazine cover girl, turned three-quarters toward the camera with her hands on her hips. “You see much of her?”

“Some.”

I think of the text that she sent me this morning, after I told her that I’d invited Andrew over:
Sleep with him, please.

I start to walk out of the room and Andrew stops me, touching me gently on my upper arm.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay, Daph, for this to be weird for you.”
Daph.

“I’m fine. It’s fine, really.” I pull away from him.

“I can tell that you’re not fine,” he says. “I can tell that this is upsetting you.”

“It’s not, it’s fine,” I say, more insistent. “Come on, I need to show you the rest of the house.”

“You need to or you want to?” he says.

I stop and look up at the ceiling.

“Answer the question, Daphne.” He says it sincerely. He couldn’t be nicer about it. Still, it pisses me off.

“I
want
to,” I say, and the minute it’s out of my mouth, I know that it’s a lie. “Come on.”

I tug his sleeve and start to pull him toward the hallway. I smile, trying to recover from my performance. He follows behind but I can tell he’s reluctant. Something’s changed and we both feel it. I walk silently down the hall. His boots (suede, stylish, evidence of his city life and the kind of thing that I used to try to get Owen to buy) squeak on the floor behind me—the original floor that we refinished and stained ourselves. Owen, he’s everywhere, haunting everything, glooming over us.

“And this is our bedroom,” I say, my hand on the jangly glass doorknob. The moment it’s out of my mouth, I realize what I’ve said. I stop where I’m standing and close my eyes.
Fuck.

He doesn’t say anything. I turn slowly, hitching, like the tiny, twirling mechanical ballerina on the jewelry box that I had as a girl.

“
My
bedroom,” I correct myself. I put my palms over my eyes.

“I think maybe it’s too soon for me to be here,” he says softly.

“I really wanted you to see my house,” I say.

“You wanted to get this over with,” he says.

“That’s not—” I start.

“Daphne, it’s okay,” he says, smiling. “I understand. I
really
do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says.

“You’re not,” I say. “This is all me.”

We both stand there, in the bedroom where I imagined that Owen and I would soothe our babies to sleep, worry over our teenagers when they missed their curfews, fight over the thermostat as we got older.

“Daphne, I think I should go,” Andrew says.

“No, please don’t,” I say. “We can have lunch out in the backyard. I’m really fine.”

“It’s okay,” he says, taking a step toward me and pulling me in for a hug. It doesn’t help me feel better. “Please don’t feel bad.”

“Okay,” I say, letting go of him. I want to go back and revise this whole incident now. Let us linger in the living room and browse the bookshelves, sit together on the swing outside. Rewind. Make this
nice
.

“I’ll call you later,” he tells me.

“Okay,” I answer, not sure I believe him.

“You’ll show me out?”

I close the door carefully behind him and then I walk the long hallway back into the house. It’s like walking a plank. This
damn house
. It is almost as if it is a living, breathing thing, its tentacles slipping around me. I start to feel flushed, like my body temperature has shot up twenty degrees, and the room goes blurry, an out-of-nowhere dizzying anxiety that I’ve never experienced before. I slowly make my way into the living room, holding the walls as I go, and then I drop to the ground and press my palms to the floor to try to steady myself.
I must be having a panic attack.

I try to take deep breaths but they won’t come. I feel stuck, like I’m trapped on the inside of some horrific collector’s item snow globe.
I feel lost in my own home.
I squeeze my eyes shut and keep breathing, willing the sensations to go away.

I don’t know how long it is before I peel myself up off the floor—it feels agonizing, like I’ll be stuck in the moment forever—but when I finally do, I wobble on unsteady feet toward the cabinet against the wall. I don’t know why I suddenly want to torture myself in the way that I’m about to, but I can’t help it. I need to look. I pull the silver album from the shelf and hold it in my lap for a moment before I open it. Our wedding day was idyllic, it really was. There was rain in the morning and Mom was freaking out so much that I forced her to have a glass of champagne with breakfast. Thirty minutes before the ceremony was to start, the clouds parted just enough to hold it outside, under the grand oak tree that Owen climbed when he was a kid. It was
perfect
. I touch the photos with my fingertips as I turn the pages. Lucy and my grandmother. Owen’s parents toasting us. Walking down the makeshift aisle with my father. Leaving the ceremony with wide smiles, our hands clasped together and raised above over our heads. Owen, looking into my eyes as he put the ring on my finger.
He meant it
, I think, leaning closer to the page to study his face.