Not Perfect(84)

He created more excuses to go to Michigan, and he always tried to see her. He went to the hospital, where she was on occasion, the only place he knew to find her since she would not give him any more information, and when she was there, she would let him come visit, sit with her, hold her hand. Other times he would go looking, and she wouldn’t be there, and he would spend those days hoping to run into her but he never did. There were six months in there when she was not in the hospital at all, which under normal circumstances would be a good thing, but for Stuart it was awful. He hired a private investigator—he was desperate and felt there was only so much time left. That was the beginning of the end of the money, and with the spending and the working less and less, it just drained away.

Abigail was finally found. She was living in a tiny cabin, just miles from the spot they had once called their home, on the shore of Lake Superior. A cabin that didn’t have a landline or a proper address. Stuart never would have found her on his own. That was the week before he told Tabitha. He had completely given up on work by then, and once he found Abigail, he had nothing to do except figure out his plan. So he went home early that week, night after night. He knew he had been a disappointing husband, that he had basically allowed Tabitha to buy into something that didn’t exist. He had never loved her in that way. But he loved the kids—so much. On that last night, he came home to the most familiar smell. Tabitha had made his mother’s cherry chicken. It tasted exactly how he remembered it, the oniony combination of salty and sweet. He realized in that moment, he just couldn’t do it anymore. This was not his home. Abigail had always been his home, and he had spent most of his adult life being homesick.

He wanted to say he was sorry. Tabitha hadn’t done anything wrong. But now, at least for the near future, he had to be with Abigail. That night he went to Tabitha to say good-bye. She mistook his kindness and pushed to have sex, which he let happen—he still wasn’t sure why—and after, he went to the bathroom. She found him there, crying. She was so confused. What was wrong? She wanted to know. And he told her, he uttered the word that had been rolling around in his mouth for so long by that point—pretend. It all felt like pretend. That’s when the first hinge snapped in her. He kept going, he told her about Abigail, about how he had always loved her. And Tabitha got the most awful look in her eyes. She knew then that he had never loved her the way she had hoped, the way she thought he might one day, the way she deserved to be loved. What he had wanted to say was, Is this really a surprise?

“How could you take so much from me?” she had said to him, or some version of that.

He had been surprised; somehow he had expected her to be more sympathetic. They had fought, and then Levi had come in. Levi needed him. When he got back, she was asleep, and he had time to book a flight, check in on the kids, and write notes to each of them. He wasn’t sure what he would find in Michigan—he was so scared. It felt like such an unraveling of everything—of his lifelong love with Abigail, of his home, however much he didn’t feel like he belonged there. And he was so mad! How could Tabitha be so harsh? Say the things she had said? So as he finished her note, he scribbled the words that would come to haunt him at the bottom of the page—“I’ll tell them what you did.” He knew Tabitha well enough to know that a small threat would keep her wondering and probably prevent her from telling anyone he was gone. She was always so ready to blame herself for things, it was almost too easy. He knew he was doing something bad, he knew ultimately he was to blame for beginning the possible dismantling of his family, but Tabitha was far from perfect; she had done some very bad things, too. He wanted to keep things on a somewhat even playing field, until he figured out where he stood, and that seemed like one way to do it.

He had intended to keep paying for everything, to get back to work and let the direct deposit checks be available to Tabitha. When he got to Michigan, however, Abigail seemed fine. He was so surprised. But he was so happy to see her that he didn’t question it, and she welcomed him. He settled into her lakeside cabin, each day thinking, Tomorrow I’ll go back. Or, at the very least, Tomorrow I’ll call the kids. Or, Tomorrow I’ll call a client. But he never did any of those things. And he completely stopped working, stopped making money. Two weeks later, she was back in the hospital. She declined rapidly. She died a week later, on the twenty-first of September.

That was when he totally dropped out. He went back to her cabin. He simply existed there, taking walks on occasion, barely showering, fishing every other day. He was just going to let himself go—slowly starve or walk himself into the ground. None of it mattered anymore. He took his cell phone and shoved it under the couch, let it drain completely and didn’t give it another thought. He didn’t even know where his computer was. It was like he had truly disappeared.

One night, over a month later, he had a dream about Fern. She was walking through a tunnel, calling for him, screaming, and he couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t answer. That was when he finally realized the magnitude of what he had done to his family, not just these last few months, but always, the whole thing had been built on nothing. But Fern, sweet Fern, he knew from the beginning he had to have her be able to reach him if she needed to. He had given her a way. He had considered giving the same option to Levi, but he knew he would be okay. He was a big boy now. And besides, Levi wouldn’t have been able to keep it from Tabitha. Not in a million years.