What's Mine and Yours(81)

“I wanted to get away from my life,” he said. It was the mildest version of the truth he could conjure. “I wanted to be someone else. After the miscarriage—”

Noelle sprang up in the bed, naked and fierce. “Is that where it started? You’ve been confused for a long time, sweetheart. And it isn’t my fault.” She rose and dressed quickly, violently. She left the room.

Nelson found her on the beat-up turquoise couch, covered in pillows and blankets, dog hair. The sun stuttered through a spotted window. He sat beside her. She spoke without looking at him.

“I can’t forgive you for this, Nelson. I can’t forget.”

“You can forget anything, Noelle. You haven’t given yourself a chance.”

“I’ve had time to think. I’ve been with my sisters.”

“You mean, your mother.”

“She has nothing to do with this. I haven’t told her what you did, and I doubt I ever will.”

Nelson’s jaw went tight. “I don’t want to live without you.”

“Neither do I, but I’m not the kind of woman to just go on after a thing like this.”

“So, you’re going to leave me based on principle? You’re too hard, Noelle.”

“I thought it was the opposite, and I was too soft?”

“You’re both,” Nelson said, and he didn’t intend it as meanness. Neither of them was perfect. She was too brutal and too tender all at once.

“You don’t get to tell me how to be anymore.”

“Why not? We’ve always tried to push each other, to make each other better, haven’t we?”

“I never promised to make you better. I was your wife. I promised to love you, and I kept my promise.”

Her voice was calm and stern, her face swollen and serene. Nelson sat beside her, chastened. He had seen this Noelle—the cool composure that signaled she had shut a door inside herself. He had seen her do it when the doctor delivered the news to them, and she’d gone perfectly still, thanked her for the explanation. He had seen her take note of anyone who had been discourteous to him at a party, or a dinner, and she’d grow taller somehow, superior, turn a chill on them that let them know they’d never be in her good graces again. It was the way she had kept herself apart from Lacey May, without cruelty, but with a vicious, elegant coldness. She had done it even with her father, whom she tolerated but had learned to no longer need. In some ways, it was a comfort to him, to see the old Noelle return; there was that spirit, that steadfastness he’d loved. But it was then that he knew it was all over. For years, she’d had one conviction about him; now she had another. She wouldn’t be weeping Noelle, or rapturous Noelle, or sweet, or naked, or curious Noelle with him ever again. She had closed a door that he couldn’t force open if he tried. In this way, they were alike; Noelle knew how to put any part of herself away.

He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. There was more that he wanted to say to her. He said it all in his head. They sat locked together, as if she were listening, until Noelle took her hand away.

“I ought to go and see my mother.”

“I thought you’d decided not to see her.”

“I was avoiding my father, actually. I didn’t want to feel any worse than I already did, but there’s no point in that now. Besides, what more is there for us to say?”

It was terrifying to hear her speak so matter-of-factly about the end of their life together. He wanted to say so, to beg her not to leave, but it would be pathetic, make no difference. He couldn’t fathom that they’d ever be done talking to one another. He put the thought out of his mind. There was only this moment and the next. There was nothing else that he could do.

“I’ll head to the airport then.”

“You’re going to turn around and go right back to Europe?”

“What else is there for me here?”

Noelle was sunlit and sedate. “I wish you wouldn’t think that way,” she said. “So this is good-bye.”

She walked him to the door; in a daze, he followed; he went to hug her, and she shook her head; she opened the door and shut it, uneventfully; he found himself alone on the porch.

He leaned against the frame of the house to steady himself. He strained to hear Noelle inside the house, just on the other side of the door. He heard only insects and birdsong, the rush of air through the trees. He watched the woods, the lean of the pines. He felt himself sway inwardly.

When he had left for Paris, she cried and cried. Usually, they said their good-byes swiftly, unsentimentally, but she had been crying so hard as she searched for her keys to drive him, he said it was better if she stayed; he’d call a car. The truth was he wanted to leave her quickly, didn’t want to watch her sob. It made him feel desperate, and if he wasn’t careful, he would say something he’d regret: It’s been months or I can’t take away your pain or You’re only hurting yourself. But he had held his tongue except to say he wanted to ride alone.

In an instant, she had calmed herself, tranquil on the bed, her legs folded beneath her. Perhaps that had been the first moment that she started to let him go. I hope you find what you’re looking for over there, she had said, and he had felt that she could see right through him.

He had left, longing for Europe as an interlude. The book, the play, and the other woman were all meant to be temporary. He had planned to come home. Noelle was his life.