To Live Again (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

After work the next day, I wasn’t meeting up with Sailo. He had somewhere to be with his son, and I had plans too. Tomorrow night, he didn’t have anything going on, so we were meeting after I was off work.

But for tonight, it was just me, and a task I really wasn’t looking forward to.

With my heart in my throat and a nervous flutter in my stomach, I followed the familiar side roads toward the house I’d lived in for so many years. All day long, this had been almost as distracting as my fantasies about Sailo. Though Becky and I had agreed that our marriage was over, and in the last three and a half weeks, we’d started going through the motions of dividing up twenty-five years of stuff and assets, those motions still hurt.

That wasn’t the part I was dreading the most, though.

I took the last turn, and a moment later, I was…well, not home. But at the house. Becky’s white Honda was parked in front of the garage, and I pulled into the empty space beside it. That in itself was strange—we’d never parked in the driveway, but the garage was now a staging area for everything I was taking with me. Once that was all gone—once I was gone—she’d probably go back to parking inside.

And it was fairly close to empty now. I’d moved the majority of my the big stuff out of the house the weekend I’d moved in with Rhett and Ethan, but a few things had stayed behind. Some seemed safer there than in my storage unit—a few family heirlooms, some electronics. There would be more, though. After all, we were still splitting things up.

I’d get the keys to my new place next weekend, and some friends were helping me move in the weekend after. In the meantime, Becky and I were slowly making our way through every room in the house, dividing everything we’d accumulated over nearly three decades. We’d already been through the bedroom, the kitchen, and my study. Today, we were tackling one of the storage rooms.

I took a deep breath, killed the idling engine, and stepped out of the car. I walked up to the porch, and paused on the Welcome mat. My stomach was twisted into knots, my chest tight with God knew how many emotions that had been cooped up there since the divorce bomb had dropped. I couldn’t wait until this part of the process was over, and I could start really moving on instead of coming over here to pick at the wound.

I exhaled hard but didn’t reach for the doorknob. I swore, nothing was weirder than ringing the doorbell of my own house, but I didn’t live here anymore, so, gritting my teeth, I pressed the button with my thumb and waited.

Footsteps on the other side amped up my heartbeat.

A second later, Becky opened the door. She lifted her chin slightly, her lips pulling tight, and set her shoulders back. I swallowed. So did she. We’d seen each other a few times since she’d initiated the divorce. There’d been that first meeting with our respective attorneys. I’d been in and out to pick up belongings. We’d had the awkward sit-down with the kids. It was getting less comfortable every time.

Seeing her face-to-face less than twenty-four hours after I’d been between the sheets with a man? For the second time?

Yeah. Awkward.

Without a word, she broke eye contact and stood aside.

I came in and didn’t speak either. As I toed off my shoes, I noticed there was a pair of sandals by the front door that definitely weren’t mine and were too big to be hers. Even at a glance, I could tell they were the wrong size for any of the kids, and anyway, none of them would’ve been caught dead wearing Birkenstocks.

I didn’t say anything, though. This was uncomfortable enough.

Becky set her shoulders back. “I, um, moved everything to the living room. I figured that would give us more space to sort it all out.”

“I could’ve helped you with that.”

She waved her hand, the gesture as taut as her features. “Mark and Kurt came over this weekend. They helped me move everything down from the storage room and the attic.”

“Oh. Well good.” I paused. “And they’re, um, still doing okay with…”

Becky nodded. “They’re stressed about it, but that’s to be expected.”

I forced myself not to wince visibly. “True.”

“Anyway.” She gestured for me to come with her, and we walked down the hall. In the living room doorway, we both stopped. The room was full of boxes. Some were old and dusty—likely the ones we’d stashed in the attic and forgotten about. Others were a bit newer, from cardboard boxes to plastic crates filled with shit I probably hadn’t seen in years. I vaguely remembered putting some of them in the storage room, but couldn’t recall what was in any of them.

There were also a couple of large empty boxes labeled Trash and Storage. I’d brought some with me, but they were still in my trunk—I’d bring them in once I knew how much of this I was actually taking.

Arms folded loosely across her chest, Becky surveyed the room. “There’s probably a ton of stuff in here neither of us will want. So we might as well just toss it.”

“Good idea.” I rolled my shoulders. “Well, let’s get started.”

She nodded. I took the love seat. She took the one cushion on the couch that wasn’t covered with stuff. In silence, we started cutting open boxes.

“So.” She glanced at me. “How have you been?”

Now wasn’t that a complicated question?

“I’ve been all right.” I sliced the weathered tape on a box whose dusty label was too faded to read. “What about you?”

She didn’t answer right away. “Still getting used to things, I think.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I opened the flaps on the box, and my breath caught. It was filled with folders containing schoolwork we’d saved from the kids’ early years. Construction paper crafts. Dusty paintings. Faded certificates “Wow. Look at these.” I withdrew a ceramic candle holder April had made in first grade.

Becky sat up a bit, laughing softly. “Haven’t seen those in a while.”

“No kidding. Some of these are…” I looked at the date written on a perfect attendance certificate. “Jesus. This is almost fifteen years old.”

“We could put them on Facebook.” She smothered a giggle. “The kids would be mortified.”

I snickered. “Yeah, they’d love that.” I paused. “You think we should keep them? Or let the kids have them?”

Becky sobered. She gazed at the box for a moment. “Just, um, keep them in there for now. Next time they’re over, I’ll see if they want to keep anything.”

Our eyes met.

So they’ll stay here, then.

Her brow creased. I tightened my lips.

We both looked at the box again. It was one thing to separate our things. We’d both been grateful we didn’t have to deal with custody of the kids, but I hadn’t bargained for this.

The kids live on their own, but where do their memories live?

Without a word, I closed the box, resealed it, and toed it toward the stack of things that would go back into the storage room. In silence, we continued working.

After a few minutes, she said, “This is for the better, Greg.”

I met her gaze. Who was she trying to convince? With a heavy half shrug, I shifted my attention back to the box in front of me. “It’s…an adjustment. We’ll be all right.” Who was
I
trying to convince?

Becky didn’t press the issue. Neither did I. We just continued going through everything we’d been storing for…what, exactly? It was impossible to say. There were boxes of tax papers and receipts that were well past the seven-year retention period. We’d even held onto an old VCR, for God’s sake.

All the while, it was impossible not to compare this uncomfortable silence with last night’s easy pillow talk. How was it so difficult to be with the mother of my children, and so effortless to be with a man I’d only known for a few days?

Of course, it made perfect sense. This thing with Sailo was shiny and new. We knew next to nothing about each other, so every conversation was interesting and full of revelations. When we weren’t talking, we were making out and burning up the sheets, and then we were talking some more.

Becky and I had long ago stopped talking after sex. We were lucky even to have the energy to have sex in the first place, and when it was over, we were out cold. And then we’d stopped talking outside the bedroom too. Somewhere along the line, it seemed like we’d either run out of things to talk about, or we’d stopped caring what the other had to say.

We’d stopped doing a lot of things, I realized. Or else it would feel weird to be sitting this far from her, rather than this close to her.

I pushed another box to the storage stack, and started on the next one, all the while trying to tamp down my thoughts and feelings, but they wouldn’t be ignored tonight.

What the hell happened? Or rather…
when?
They say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Sitting there in uncomfortable silence with Becky, slowly dissecting the remnants of the life we’d built together, I understood that more profoundly than ever before.

There’d been a time when we were always cuddly, always chatting about something while we sat as close as we could. Even if we were watching a movie, my arm would always be around her shoulders and her leg would always be draped over mine. It wasn’t sexual—just affectionate. Intimate.

And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember how long it had been since that had faded into the rearview. Losing that closeness was what hurt, and I felt like an idiot for realizing way, way too late that we’d lost it a long time ago. I couldn’t even remember when. I distinctly remembered that intimacy carrying us through those brutal early years with the kids. How many times had one of us fallen asleep in the other’s arms after being up all night with a fussy baby or a sick toddler? How many years had it been since one of our preteens had wrinkled their nose at us and said, “Oh my God, you guys—gross!”? When had all that stopped?

I surreptitiously watched Becky sorting through a stack of old Christmas cards. I homed in on her hands. Long, elegant fingers. A little more weathered than they’d been in her younger days, and with a sinking feeling in my chest, I realized I had no idea what her hands felt like now. Did her fingers still get cold? How long had it been since I’d enclosed her fingers in my hand to warm them up?

I shifted my gaze from her hands to her face.

How long have we been strangers?

I swallowed the lump suddenly rising in my throat, and turned my attention back to this box of junk that had come into our lives at some point. My knotted stomach sank, and I slowly exhaled. Now I understood why she’d insisted there was no saving our marriage. Her mind had been made up. Divorce was happening, and that was that, no matter what I had to say about it.

It made sense now. She wasn’t ending things. They’d ended ages ago, and all she’d done was mercifully pull the plug.

“Looks like we need another trash box.”

Her voice startled me. I craned my neck toward the trash box, and she was right—it was brimming with junk.

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll take this one outside.” While she set up another box, I carried the full one out to the garage.

As I set the box down beside the recycling bins, I did a double take. In the recycling bin, there were some empty brown bottles of some pretentious beer I’d never heard of. My gut tightened. Becky couldn’t stand beer. I was more of a Budweiser man than a trendy microbrew guy.

I shook my head and went back inside. The Birkenstocks and beer bottles were painting a picture I wasn’t ready to see but couldn’t ignore. Thank God nothing of mine lived in the bedroom or the master bathroom anymore, and we’d already sorted through that part of the house. I really didn’t want to see my replacement’s razor or toothbrush.

Jealousy surged in my chest, but I tamped it back down. I had no right to be territorial. Hell, I was sleeping with another man, too, so I’d have been a colossal hypocrite to give her shit for it. In fact, she’d had more time to come to terms with our split than I had, since she had to have been planning it or at least thinking about it for a while before she dropped the bomb on me. So if it was okay for me to be with someone else at this point, it was definitely okay for her. She was moving on. So was I.

Did he close his hands around the ends of her fingers to warm them up?

That thought gave me pause. Hypocritical or not, I had to admit that it hurt to realize Becky was with someone else now. I was getting used to the idea of being divorced, of going through the motions of moving on with my life, but every now and then, something would take my breath away. Make me stop and realize this was really happening. Remind me of this massive upheaval in my life.

Seeing a new man taking my place? That was one of those things.

Outside the living room, where I was sure she couldn’t see me, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I’d be okay. Becky would be okay. This was all part of the process, and in the end, we’d both be fine.

I just hoped that part came sooner than later.

* * * * *

“Well, I think that’s the last of it.” Dusting my hands off on my jeans, I nodded toward the boxes we’d added to the staging area in the garage. “We don’t have anything left to go through, do we?”

Becky shifted her weight, thumbs hooked in her pockets. “I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

“Okay. If you find anything else, drop me a text, and I’ll come by and get it.”

She nodded. “I will. I think that’s it, though.” Squaring her shoulders, she held my gaze. “You’re moving…the weekend after this one, right?”

“Yeah. So I’ll, uh, come by that morning. Pick all this up.”

“Right. Good. The code on the garage door hasn’t changed. If we’re not here, let yourself in.”

We?

I didn’t acknowledge it, though. “I will.” I glanced around the garage, just in case I’d missed anything. “Okay. Well. I guess I’d better go.”

“All right. You’re sure you don’t need help on moving day?”

“No, I’ve got some guys to help. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She swallowed. “What about…what about in general? Are you sure you’re doing okay?”

“Yeah. I’m, um, adjusting. You?”

Her lips tightened and she nodded. “Same. Same.”

We held each other’s gazes, the silence feeling oddly like it needed to be filled, but I had no idea what to say. She didn’t speak either.