Do I Know You?(79)

“You hide in silence. In your performances,” he continues. “It’s the shadow on the other side of this week. I know you want to pretend we were just having some unconventional, therapeutic fun. But it’s not true, is it? You weren’t just enjoying being and meeting someone new. You were loving being not yourself. This wasn’t just about asking questions, or rediscovering surprises, or whatever. It was about hiding.” He shakes his head sadly. “Until you’re ready to open a door to me, I don’t know how I can be here for you.”

I’m speechless, caught in the cold grip of this impossible reality. Not just wordless-speechless, either. He’s sucked the breath clean out of my lungs. I want to defend myself, want to point out the reasons why he’s wrong. Under his gaze, though, I can’t find them.

Sparing me, his eyes shift to my open suitcase on the bed. “I’ll let you finish packing,” he says, sounding like something has frozen over the fight in him. “We should drive out tonight. No point in staying.”

Not hesitating, he walks to the door.

Before he opens it, he speaks to me over his shoulder. “Meet me in the bar when you’re ready. We’ll figure . . . the rest out from there.”

Silently, I watch him walk out into the hallway. Unlike in the restaurant, I don’t have the urge to rush after him. I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the hope.

I don’t have anything at all to say.





48


    Graham


IT’S FUNNY HOW different hotels feel with no excitement in them. They’re just spaces, just logistics, just people showing up for work in rooms engineered for relaxation. Just beautiful frames on empty canvases.

Over the past week, I guess I’d gotten used to seeing something more in the mahogany corridors of this one. Now, standing in front of the reception desk with my bags packed, I feel exactly like I did when we first got here, when Eliza suggested we stay separately. I hand over my bags to the same bellhop who watched me with tentative curiosity when he escorted me down to my lonely honeymoon suite on our first night.

I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get into that car, when we start the six-hour drive back home to the problems now brought out into the daylight, still unresolved. Problems I couldn’t even name on my way out of Eliza’s hotel room. We’ll figure the rest out, I said. The rest. I had to disguise the enormity of the rift between us behind the simple idiom. In this, I guess I’m hiding, too.

The receptionist smiles when she comes out from the back office and sees me. Rosie, I remember miserably. The cyclicality of everything is starting to grind on my nerves.

“Hi, Mr. Cutler,” she greets me. “Happy anniversary.”

Impossibly, I feel even worse. Part of me had forgotten. My parents must have mentioned it when they tried to send Eliza flowers.

“Would you like me to have champagne and roses sent over to your room tonight?” she offers. “What time are you dining? We can have them brought in while you and Mrs. Cutler are out.”

Forcing my smile feels like carving into greased stone while holding my chisel with broken fingers.

“Actually,” I say, “I’d like to check out.”

Rosie maintains her pleasantly neutral demeanor despite the huge reversal I’ve delivered her. “All right,” she complies quickly, her nails clicking quietly on her keyboard. “I hope there weren’t any problems with your room or your stay.”

“No, nothing like that,” I reply. It’s the truth, which is heartbreaking in its own way. Everything here was perfect. Practically paradise. It was our best shot.

But if Eliza and I couldn’t succeed here, couldn’t find each other here, there’s no way we’ll manage to in the midst of work, routines, ordinary life. The thought returns two looping, looming words to the fore of my mind—the rest.

Rosie prints out a receipt. “Just sign here,” she instructs me gently, passing the hotel pen to me over the desk. “When you’re ready to leave, you can recycle your keys with me.”

I nod, staring down at the list of charges. Neat, itemized reminders of everything Eliza and I did this week. There’s dinner and dancing. Higher up, the boxing class neither of us was prepared for. Everything. It’s painfully perfect, seeing them reduced like this. Stripped of emotion in precise ink.

I hesitate for a second, then sign my name in fast, sure strokes.

Returning the paper to the receptionist, I feel sadder than I thought I would. I imagined we’d be leaving this hotel renewed, our marriage fortified. Instead, part of me feels like I’m throwing in the towel. But I’ve truly done everything I can think to do. We don’t need to have the impending long conversation in the same room where I undressed my wife down to her lingerie. Better it be in our cluttered dining room.

I’m turning to leave when the front doors open. David and Lindsey walk in. Remembering the plans David detailed to me for their date, I check my watch. It’s only 7:30, which doesn’t bode well for a first date. Neither do the looks on their faces—David is plainly crestfallen, the emotion out of place on his usually exuberant features, while Lindsey is grimacing like she just stepped in a puddle while wearing socks.

They’re not speaking. Feet of distance separate them without the slightest chance of hand-holding.