Perfectly Adequate(74)
I don’t know. Maybe that means I’m sane. But I refuse to make that wager. After all … I’ve done some mildly insane things with Dorothy in the past few weeks.
“So I pulled the plug on our marriage. And I changed everything I hated about myself on the outside, but it didn’t change how I felt on the inside. I signed up for classes like pole fitness, and I tried speed dating. Then I went through three different psychiatrists, tried healing touch and meditation. When that didn’t work, I downloaded an app for hooking up and I fucked ten strangers in less than two weeks.”
I flinch. Even with the rumors, it still knocks the air from my lungs hearing her confess everything to me. I much prefer the I-was-a-butterfly-you-were-my-cocoon analogy.
“Still …” Her blank, glassy-eyed gaze remains affixed to the window or maybe the wall. I can’t tell. “I didn’t feel better. I just simply felt alone. But alone felt numbing. And that lack of feeling was better than hating myself. And then one day, I met Nick at a yoga class. I didn’t care for the class, but I liked his smile and the way he looked at me when he didn’t know I was watching him.”
Julie chuckles. “So we started dating. The good kind of dating where you leave all your baggage behind. We didn’t ask each other about our jobs or siblings. I didn’t tell him about Roman or my failed marriage. He didn’t tell me about his three daughters and his ex-wife who was diagnosed with cancer two months after he asked her for a divorce. You see, we lived in the moment. Moments filled with questions like, ‘What do you think of that waitress’s purple eyeshadow or where should we go for ice cream? Should we get a tattoo? Do you think anyone could hear us if we fucked in that bathroom?’”
“Christ, Jules …” I close my eyes.
“I never smoked a joint or shot up or even got a prescription for an antidepressant. Yet, I felt high all the time with Nick. He gave me what I needed before I even knew myself what that was. And I gave him a life without questions or guilt. We didn’t have to fit because we weren’t trying to be anything more than a moment.”
When I open my eyes, Julie blinks and the tears break free. This time, she makes no effort to stop them or bat them away.
“Sometimes we would meet for coffee and just sit in the back corner of a cafe and drink in complete silence until one or the other stood from our chair and walked out. That’s messed up, right? Meeting up with someone just so you don’t have to sit alone and drink coffee. But it was perfect—a time and place to just be without feeling alone. Without feeling the need to pollute the air with words.”
“What happened, Jules?”
She pulls the sleeve of her long-sleeved T-shirt over her hand and uses it to wipe her cheeks. “Three weeks ago, we were sitting in our usual cafe, in our usual spot, drinking our usual drinks. He got up to leave first. But instead of brushing his fingertips along my arm, his unspoken ‘goodbye, see you tomorrow,’ he instead stopped just inches behind me so our backs were to each other. And he told me.” She wipes more tears.
“Told you what?”
“My ex-wife’s name is Jennifer. She has her first chemo treatment today. My girls are Elisha, Kylee, and Becca. It’s time for me to go home. Thank you for this. I will never forget it.” She sniffles, shaking her head, eyes rolling to the ceiling. “He went from a beautiful mystery to an ugly reality. But I need reality. For the first time in three years, I’m ready for reality. It finally fits. The switch flipped. And everything that tore me apart before Nick, feels like the only thing that can put me back together. Like the poison is the cure. Like it’s time for me to go home too. Only … mine is no longer waiting for me.”
We sit in silence for many minutes as her confessions hang in the air with nowhere to go.
“You’re my reality, Eli. You’re my home. You. Me. And Roman. And I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve a second chance. But I want one. And I have to…” she pulls in a shaky breath to steady her words “…I have to believe that our love that has spanned more than two decades and the creating of another life is greater than my months with Nick and your weeks with Dorothy. I have to believe that these other people came into our lives to bring us perspective and bring us back together.”
I’m tired. My pain medication has kicked in and done its job. The part of my brain that processes mind-blowing confessions is out of commission. So I lean my head back, close my eyes, and succumb to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I’m Here for You
Julie and I don’t speak of our conversation for the following two weeks. We fall into a routine of meals, laughter with Roman, television, patient updates from the hospital, and visits from family. The silver lining is my dad’s willingness to help me bathe. He pretty much treats me like a vehicle. I feel thoroughly bruised from the high pressure setting he chooses on the bath hose nozzle. But … I don’t have to deal with the awkwardness of my mom or Julie bathing me.
Dorothy? Well, she won’t answer my calls, but she offers short one and two-word texts in response to my texts.
Me: How was your day?
Dorothy: Fine.
Me: Can I see you soon?
Dorothy: Not sure.
Me: Are you okay?
Dorothy: Yeah.
She offers enough emotional reassurance to make any desperate man jump off the side of a tall building. But I’m not that lucky, because I can’t move my fucking body far enough on my own to even get to a tall ledge.