The Winters(39)

FIFTEEN


Once I had made up my mind to leave, a calm came over me. The fight was over. In fact, it felt less like leaving than like Asherley itself was pushing me out, rejecting me like a body rejecting an unfamiliar organ. The memory of Rebekah was stronger than any future I might have here. Dani was certainly content to live off it, and last night I had got the sense, finally, that Max might be, too.

The sun was barely up by the time I had packed my small suitcase and checked flights. I wanted to avoid a scene. I left behind the few winter belongings I’d acquired since I’d been at Asherley, taking only what I’d need for the Caymans in early March. I had enough money in my own account to get me to the airport, purchase a one-way ticket, and stay at the hostel until I found work. My plan was first to prostrate myself at Laureen’s swollen ankles and beg for my job back, or any job, really. I would tell her she’d been right, not just about Max but about me, and my stupidity, the arrogance of thinking I was special enough to turn a fling into a marriage. If I couldn’t appeal to her sympathies, then I’d walk up and down Seven Mile Beach knocking on every office door of every hotel and restaurant. It was high season. Surely someone needed extra waitstaff or cleaning help.

I wrote Max a letter and left it on his dressing table. It was short. I said I loved him very much but I couldn’t stay where I wasn’t wanted. I thanked him profusely for these past few months; they had been the best of my life. Something like that. I wish I’d kept it. I think back often on that morning when I called the cab, whispering that I’d meet the driver down at the gate in an hour since I did not know how to open it from the house. I crept across the second-floor gallery to the top of the stairs. There I listened for sounds. Everyone was asleep. Katya hadn’t arrived. Would she have stopped me from escaping? Probably not. She had the same middle-aged pragmatism as Laureen, which I had come to admire and hoped one day to emulate. Imagine not caring what people think. Imagine having the courage to talk back to people you don’t like, who don’t like you, or better yet, not reacting at all, simply shrugging it off and moving on with your day. I wanted to be more like that. I would let this experience toughen me up. I would recover and be better for it. And yet none of these thoughts, however true (or not), stanched the flow of my tears. This was a big love. I would grieve its loss for a long time.

I carefully placed my bag on the tile floor of the foyer. When I crept into the anteroom, I glanced at the gun cabinet next to the one that housed my fleece. I recognized the handguns, the same kind we kept on the boats in case a shark or a large stingray threatened a client, or, though I never told Laureen, a client threatened me. I considered a few more months here, with the tension ratcheted up even higher. I could never hurt Dani, but she could hurt me, or herself.

If you bring ur fucking fling home daddy ill kill myself.

That these scenarios even crossed my mind meant it was time to go.

As I shut the cabinet door, I heard footsteps. I closed my eyes and prayed. I wasn’t religious, but I asked a power from above, any power at all, to give me the strength to keep walking out that door. I left the anteroom clutching my fleece to my heart, knowing Max was prepared for a different kind of battle, which I knew already I would lose by the way he said my name in a low, hollowed-out voice, my letter wafting from his hand to the floor.

“Don’t go.”

“Max, I’m sorry. But I have to.” I picked up my bag.

He grabbed the handle, gave it a gentle tug, and placed the bag on the floor behind him. “No. This is not what I want to happen. You can’t leave.” He looked more exhausted than I did, ashen-faced, unshaven, his eyes bloodshot. “Stay. I love you.”

“I can’t. This has become too hard. For everyone.”

“I’ll make it easier.”

“You can’t.”

“Yes. Yes, I can.”

“I don’t belong here, Max. You know that.”

“You do. I thought you were happy here.”

“I thought so, too, until last night, when I realized I’ll never be enough. Especially not for Dani.”

“Nonsense. Last night should never have happened.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have opened the greenhouse.”

“You did nothing wrong. I should never have spoken to you like that. I behaved like a monster. I can’t tell you how ashamed I am of myself. I didn’t come upstairs last night because I couldn’t face you. And now you’re—I don’t want to lose you. Stay. I need you. We need you. More than you know.”

When the heart rules the body, it will always betray even the soundest, wisest corners of your mind. It’s hard to believe now how easily I could be persuaded by sentiment, how the feeling of being needed could murder all my resolve. It’s part of being young, I suppose, that malleability, the best and worst part, but there I was, crying “Oh, Max” and flinging myself into his arms, smelling that musty smell of a long, sad night on him.

He held me tight for a while, murmuring that he had wanted to come up to our bed a thousand times, to put his arms around me, to comfort me, but he thought I wanted to be alone with my kitten, and that a night apart for him to contemplate what he’d done and how he might make it up to me might fix some of what he had broken.

“I should have come to you. I should have begged your forgiveness right away. Dani, too.”