The Night Before(31)

Jonathan looks at me and smiles. It’s not a warm smile.

“What did you think was going to happen?” he asks. But it isn’t really a question.

“I don’t know what you mean.” But I do know.

“How were you going to fend him off? That seems dangerous.” He touches my arm and I see a glimpse of reassurance. “I’m not judging you. I just don’t understand why you would leave with him. Go to his car. Get inside.”

I wipe away every trace of an expression.

“That was harsh.” He backs off. Now I see sympathy. “So what did happen?”

It does not get past me that he never mentions the bat. He is not sold on my story the way the police were after they found the car and Lionel Casey.

“I’d been dating the guy. He was a shit. He asked me to do something. An ultimatum. A condition to keep him. And I was desperate. I thought if we were alone, if he saw how much I loved him, he would stop being a shit. I didn’t know about Britney, how he’d been with her for an entire year. I only knew he came and went in my life for months and it was torture. I never knew when he would be there. I never knew when he would disappear. But when he did come back—it was intoxicating. Nothing else could touch that feeling. Didn’t you ever run into a woman who made you feel that way?”

He thinks for a moment, but not really. The shrink was right. Normal people don’t fall into traps like that. Only the broken ones.

“I’m sure I would have if I hadn’t met my wife so early,” he says, lying—and I realize from this lie that he has the ability to be kind. Because that’s what that was—kindness. I was a broken hot mess. I was that friend who everyone tries to help but who won’t listen to reason.

Then he eases into another question. “Why were you so drawn to him? To this shithead who only fed you scraps?”

I have an answer. It’s a lie.

“Our father left when I was twelve. Left us for another family. That probably has something to do with it. That’s when it all started. It took me years to understand myself. What pieces were broken and why. It was such a relief when I finally sorted it out.”

This is a good lie—that Dick leaving was the start of my problems. My anger. The truth is that I was broken long before Dick left us.

But Jonathan buys it and moves on.

“So then what happened with that guy in New York? The one who disappeared?”

It’s a good question, Jonathan Fielding.

“I don’t know. Honestly. He was the first man I thought was actually good,” I say. Then I shrug and look sad. Truth. Truth. Truth. All of it true, even the sadness.

“So this must be hard for you,” he says. “Getting back into dating. You must be analyzing everything—even what I’m saying right now.”

I wave my hand in circles like a magician. “If only I had magical powers to see what’s going on inside there.” I smile. Try to sound playful.

Our story turns a page. A new chapter begins.

“Well,” he says. “It’s not easy for me, either, if that makes you feel better.”

Yes, it does. Misery loves company. Misery beats empathy every time.

“How so?” I ask. I want it to be bad. I want to hear how he’s suffered so I don’t feel so alone in my own suffering. I’ve been around Rosie and Joe and their marital bliss for too long.

“I told you my mother died last year, right?”

I nod. He did. I almost forgot because I can be selfish that way, hearing only the part about how much his parents loved him and feeling the fury of envy from it.

Exhaustion caused by chronic insomnia can make a person selfish.

“It came soon after the divorce. Maybe a month. My wife was at the funeral. Sorry—my ex-wife. I don’t know why I keep doing that.”

Neither do I.

“That must have been hard,” I say. Both of us, we keep saying this. And I wonder if he was a patient of the same therapist. Haha.

“When they lowered her casket into the ground, and I looked at my ex-wife, across the grave, not beside me—it was just like watching all the love in my life go into the ground with her. It hasn’t left me. That feeling I had, like it’s all so fragile. The very thing that makes life worth living can be gone in an instant and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

Holy. Shit.

I stare at him because he’s closed his eyes and can’t see me stare. And because he’s crying. Not like a waterfall. Just two or three drippy little tears.

He blinks them away, opens his eyes again, and catches me staring.

I look away.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to stare. You just caught me off guard.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “All this talk about the meaning of life, and these horrible events from our past and bad breakups … I guess these things don’t come up that often in conversation, so I push them aside. Get up. Go to work…”

“Check your likes and winks on findlove.com.”

“Exactly.”

I exhale loudly so he knows I’m running alongside him on this emotional obstacle course.

“It’s been a lot. I’m sorry. I’ve been in a very reflective place since I’ve come home. This is all my fault.”