Ink and Bone(28)
“I’m sorry,” she said. This time she looked sincere. “I know how hard it is. I can see that.”
He waited for it.
“But we had a plan. You made promises to me. Do you remember? I can’t put my life on hold forever.”
Here was what he should have said:
Kris, you’re right. I can’t string you along anymore. For a moment, a brief blistering moment, I thought that what we had was love. But I don’t love you. I never did. It’s only now, sifting through the debris of my life, the one I didn’t appreciate, that I realize what I’ve lost. You should just find a nice guy your age (yeah, she was only twenty-five). Find a nice guy with a blog and a Facebook page, maybe even a fat publishing contract. Someone who is young enough to confuse lust with love, someone who is shallow enough to never notice that you have the emotional depth of a kiddie pool. I have been sleeping with you because you are simply the only easy pleasure I have had in my life for ages. Now that you are no longer easy? You are just not worth the effort.
Instead:
“Look, Kris, my mom and dad are coming to spend time with Jackson tonight. I’ll come over, okay? We’ll talk more.”
She wiped her tears, that bright smile coming back a little.
“And we’ll figure it out?” she said. “We’ll make another plan?”
“Yeah,” he lied. He lifted her bright red wool coat from the hook on the wall and handed it to her. “We will.”
“You promise?” She stretched up to kiss him softly on the lips. He let her because honestly she was the only person who kissed him anymore—other than pecks on the cheek from his mom. Jackson endured Wolf’s kisses to the forehead. Merri wouldn’t come near him; she actually recoiled from physical contact with him. Who could blame her?
“I promise,” he said.
As they exited the building, she had that little bounce in her step again. She had no idea that they were never going to see each other again. He had always been an excellent liar.
*
Uptown, Wolf got off the train a stop early to force himself to walk the extra distance even though his leg screamed in protest, and his physical therapist told him that he might be overdoing it.
“For injuries,” the physical therapist said, “rest is as important as the right exercises.”
Their family therapist had said something similar. That they should be finding ways to relax and even have fun together again, just the three of them. That it wasn’t disloyal to Abbey to find joy again. Which was complete and utter bullshit.
He ignored all the Abbeys he saw. The Abbey in the purple jacket and pink cheetah print helmet riding a Razor scooter beside her mom. The Abbey as she might look twenty years from now—wheat-colored hair pulled back, wearing jeans and a stylish black poncho, holding hands with her hipster boyfriend, whom Wolf was sure to despise. The Abbey as she had been, a little pink peanut in a stupid-expensive stroller (It’s a pram! A car seat! A high chair! A booster!) with Mom jogging behind trying desperately to lose weight she didn’t need to lose.
All the Abbeys that were and would never be because of his careless, shitty brand of fatherhood. The smart phone dad—always taking pictures and posting beautiful filtered shots on Facebook and Instagram for others to admire, forgetting almost entirely to look with his own eyes.
He saw Jackson standing outside the school, resting against the gray brick wall and staring at his iPhone. It was the perfect fall -afternoon—cool but not cold, leaves shedding, street full of kids and parents heading home from school, not yet crushed with commuters rushing to and fro.
His kid looked like a scarecrow, balancing on one thin leg, blond hair spiky all over, so fragile as if he could blow away or burst into flames. All of this was hardest on the kid. Wolf thought for a moment that Jackson had ditched the crutch he was still using. As Wolf drew closer, he saw it leaning against the wall next to Jackson.
“Hey, buddy,” he called. “What are you doing out here?”
Maybe it was progress. Usually Jackson wouldn’t step outside without one of them. Though what help the kid thought his useless father would be, Wolf couldn’t imagine.
“I don’t know,” said Jackson as his dad approached.
Wolf bent down with effort and took Jackson’s book bag. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of Jackson’s phone. The New York Times app was open to a breaking story about a school shooting in Texas.
“Jacko,” said Wolf. “Come on. You’re not supposed—”
“I know.”
“The doctor said—”
“I know.” He almost yelled—the sweetest, most gentle kid that ever was. An angel baby, Merri had called him. Sleeping through the night by two weeks old, rarely a peep out of him. Softer: “I can’t help it, Dad. I just can’t.”
Wolf ran a hand along the back of Jackson’s silky, beautifully shaped head, fighting back a powerful rush of sadness and pain. Was there no end to it?
“I get it,” he said. “I get it. Let’s go get a smoothie at Papaya King.”
A longish walk that would do them both good. He hoped.
EIGHT
Something was different. Something had shifted. The air had a peculiar scent; the gray of the sky was darker punching against the bright white of the high clouds. Something. What was it? Eloise watched Finley go—the girl’s thin form crouched over the roaring machine, speeding away. That girl thought she owned the world; maybe she did. She didn’t believe that she could make a mistake, get hurt. Eloise envied her arrogance a little, even as she cautioned against it. As Finley turned the corner out of sight, Eloise smiled, in spite of herself.