In the Stillness(48)

After a few seconds of staring at the space he vacated, I turn without announcement and walk to Tosha’s car. When she gets in, the sound of her slamming door echoes in silence for a minute.

“What the hell just happened?” I breathlessly fight off a shiver.

“Well . . .” She tries to form something coherent. But what just happened was anything but.

“You should stop by sometime?” I repeat Ryker’s invitation as Tosha starts the car and backs out of the space.

“Yeah . . .”

“The last time we saw each other I cracked my f*cking head open and I should stop by sometime?” My sweating palms make it hard to clench my fist. The interior of the car is shrinking, along with my throat.

“He probably panicked. You know, like how you gave him a hug?” Tosha’s voice sounds crackly as my head spins.

We make it a mile or so down the road before I’m suffocating and my tongue is numb.

“Stop. Tosha stop the car, stop!”

Pulling over by a corn field, she doesn’t yet have the car in park before I’m unbuckled and throwing the door open. I haven’t had one in a long time, but panic attacks are no stranger, and I need to walk this off. I lock my fingers behind my head and look to the clouds, swallowing fresh air into my lungs. Ignoring the rough gravel, I sit against the car tire and hold my head in my hands—begging it to stay attached to my body.

“You okay?” Tosha sits next to me and lights a cigarette.

Feeling slowly returns to my face and fingers as my pulse returns to normal. Ripping the cigarette from her fingers, I take a deep drag as I lean my head against the car.

“I just need to go home . . .” Still shaking, I hand her the cigarette and dust myself off before climbing back in her car.

Tosha remains studiously focused on the road for the remainder of the drive to my apartment. When we pull up alongside my building, I take one more cleansing breath.

“Are you going to be okay?” There’s no snark in her tone.

“Did you know he had a farm around here?” I ask to the windshield.

Tosha shrugs. “How would I?”

“I don’t know, haven’t you ever Googled him or anything?”

“Why would I? Have you ever Googled him?”

I’m surprised at my own response. “No, I haven’t. Ever. I’ve been kind of busy, you know. And . . . I didn’t even think about him much until recently—”

“That’s total bullshit, Natalie, and you know it.” Tosha sounds almost angry. “No one else I know who doesn’t have any connection to the military is as much of a stickler for going to Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and Fourth of July events as you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I snap back.

“It’s like you’ve spent the last ten years trying to repent for keeping him out of the National Guard when he wanted to reenlist. Like you think if you’re super active in supporting the troops that will pay back some debt you think you owe. You don’t owe anyone anything, Natalie. In fact, you probably saved his f*cking life.”

I’ve never given that a thought, that maybe I saved his life. Not likely. Guilt is stronger than reason, and I don’t buy what she’s saying.

“So what do I do?” I turn toward Tosha with tears in my eyes.

“You go figure out your marriage, or what’s left of it, and only think about Ryker Manning when you’re ready. You haven’t seen him in ten years. Maybe you’ll go another ten . . . if you want to.”

I leave her last words to bump around in my brain as I get out of her car and trudge up to my apartment . . . my real life. Pausing for a moment with my door on the handle, I listen for signs of what I’m about to walk into. Silence points to a successful nap time, allowing me to open the door with a tinge less dread than I’d walked up the stairs with.

“Hey,” Eric mumbles as he stares at the TV.

“Hey.” I take my bag to the kitchen and unpack the emotionally tainted produce.

“How’d everything go at the Clarke School today?” Eric asks purely as a matter of formality, since he hasn’t turned down the TV to hear a real answer.

“Everything’s fine. We’re pretty lucky Ollie already knows how to speak and has probably been reading lips for a while, anyway, they said. He’ll still see their speech and hearing therapist, and we’ll all learn sign language to give him the most options for communication.” Ryker’s half-smile blinds all other images from my mind as I try to discuss my child. “Still,” I continue with a sigh, “they suggest really focusing on being face-to-face with him when we speak so he can read lips. We’ve got to work on that with Max, too . . .”

Eric’s footsteps startle me from my speech. His hand feels foreign as it brushes the spot Ryker’s hands rested just half an hour ago. An awkward sense of betrayal swirls around me. I grip the counter and hang my head.

“Natalie . . .” Eric glides his hand up to my shoulder as my tears mockingly tickle my cheeks.

Despite me telling him I don’t love him, and having told him before that I hate him, Eric pulls me into a comforting embrace. My arms hang uselessly at my side. He knows everything, Eric does. He knows I missed school for a semester because I was a cutter with a borderline-abusive boyfriend, and that we’d made a spectacular mess of both of our lives. He knows I didn’t want to have his children, or get married just because it was the “proper” thing to do. Eric knows I resentfully put my aspirations on hold so he could fulfill his. And, still, he tries to hug my pain away.