The Things We Cannot Say(36)

Not ready to apologize yet, then. I know it’ll come, so I tell her I love her and leave her be.

There’s no more prolonging the inevitable—that kitchen needs attention, so I head there next. It takes over an hour to undo the damage Wade did cooking tonight, and just as I suspected, he’s nowhere to be seen. I try not to resent that, because he did help me out today, and in doing so, he significantly exceeded my expectations. Still, my thoughts wander back to Babcia as I clean, and I think about how much easier this whole situation would be if Wade was different—Wade, not Eddie. I can’t let myself wish Eddie was different. Even letting that thought linger in my mind would feel like a betrayal to my son.

When I finally wander into the bedroom Wade and I share, I’m surprised to find he’s in the bedroom too—I assumed he was in his study working, but he’s had a shower and he’s pulling on his pajamas. I sit on the bed and watch him dress.

“Want to talk about it?” he asks softly.

The offer is surprising, but it’s most definitely welcome. I lean back into the pillows and tuck my legs up, then wrap my arms around them, pulling myself smaller as if that will make me stronger.

“Babcia keeps asking for Pa.”

“Poor Babcia,” Wade sighs. “Has she...forgotten?”

“I don’t think so. Mom thinks she’s confused, but... I’m starting to think she wants something else. Maybe she wants some information about Pa, but she doesn’t know how to ask.”

“That sounds pretty frustrating.”

“It is,” I sigh, and now dressed in his pajamas, Wade approaches the bed and sits up beside me. He turns me slightly, and I shift to give him access to rub my shoulders. The pressure and the kneading feel amazing, but just as I start to relax, he drops a gentle but lingering kiss against my neck.

There’s a subtext in that kiss—an offer and a request, and it irritates me to my very bones. Seriously? He thinks I’m in the mood for sex after the day I’ve had?

I try to maneuver subtly out of his way and keep talking as if I didn’t notice the kiss.

“I honestly don’t know what we would have done if it wasn’t for Eddie’s AAC app. Her right hand doesn’t seem to be working the way it should—I don’t think she can write.”

“Uh-uh.”

“The thing is, what could she possibly want me to find out? She lived an entire life with Pa, what question did she never think to ask him? After seventy-plus years with someone, how can they still have secrets from you?”

There’s a moment of silence as my husband ponders this, then he says cautiously, “You have secrets from me and we’ve been together for well over a decade.”

“I don’t have secrets from you,” I say stiffly. Wade sighs and drops back to sink into his pillows. I turn around and frown at him. “I don’t.”

“You’re angry at me all of the time, and most of the time I have no idea why.”

“Seriously, Wade? You have no idea why?”

He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Go on,” he says, taunting me. “Get it off your chest. You’re obviously wanting to vent. What is it today? I’m a shit father? I’m a shit husband? I work too much? I don’t understand how hard your life is? I don’t get what it’s like to sacrifice your career?”

I glare at him, then I stand, pick up my pillow and head for the door.

“Go on, Alice,” he calls after me, his tone flat. “Run away and feel sorry for yourself because Big Bad Wade tried to make you have an adult conversation.”

“You asshole,” I say, and I turn back to him from the doorway and scowl at him through my tears. “She’s going to die, Wade. Babcia is going to die and I don’t know how to help her and you pick today to try to address the problems in our marriage?”

I see the brief flash of remorse cross his face as I slam the door and walk to Eddie’s room. My son is curled up in the corner of his bed, but the duvet is on the floor beside him. It’s weighted and to me, uncomfortably heavy, but the pressure helps keep Eddie calm, although it also tends to slip off the bed when he’s restless. I lift the duvet over his body and tuck him in, then reach under the bed and withdraw the trundle mattress.

It’s already made up, because I end up in here pretty often. Usually I come in here to help Eddie sleep, but tonight, it’s for me. Maybe Wade is right. Maybe I am running away, but all I know is, I need comfort from him tonight and not demands, and if I can’t get those things, I’ll settle for space instead.



CHAPTER 11

Alina


Since the invasion, the Nazis had been executing any citizen who provided Jews with material assistance—but when this failed to deter some people, they broadened the decree. Now they would execute the family of such a person—women and children included. For a crime as innocent as handing a Jewish person a glass of water, an entire family would now be slaughtered.

We learned about this new ruling the same way we learned about many of the struggles in Trzebinia, from Truda and Mateusz at Sunday lunch. It was snowing that day, and Emilia was wearing a black coat that was several sizes too big for her, inherited from one of the other children in their street. Her gifts of posies had stalled when the cold came, but Emilia still brought me a drawing each week, often on the back of propaganda pamphlets, because paper was increasingly difficult for Mateusz and Truda to come by.