“About what?”
He moves his hands against the steering wheel again. “About anything.”
The car in front of us moves. Thank God. “She has different perspectives about things because she’s not in a relationship. She can’t very well give me advice about our relationship when she has no clue how they function.”
“She’s been in a relationship,” Adam counters.
A thought strikes. “Was the purpose of having Juliet here because you thought she’d give me some life-altering marriage advice?” My heart pounds against my chest. “Your sly way of inviting my best friend here with altruistic motives? That’s disgusting. I give you too much credit sometimes.”
“Whoa. Whoa. That came out of left field. I did something nice for you. You’re trying to vilify me. That makes it easier for you to push me away.”
“The therapy session ended,” I whisper, irritated he’s probably right. “Why do you stay with me? Why are we trying to make this work?”Why? Why? Why? Why?
“I’ll answer honestly if you do,” he says.
The brake lights relented a few minutes ago, and now we’re moving at the speed limit, the white flurrying snow cascading onto our window so it looks as if we’re traveling into a vortex. “You know why I’m still here,” I say. Adam is a good man. He has all the qualities any woman wants in a man. He’s strong willed, hardworking, soft when he needs to be, and loyal to a damn fault. Adam would make a perfect family man. That’s what I’d be discarding. He’s a known entity. And he is mostly good.
“Why are you still here? You only married me because of the pregnancy. You finally admitted that. Why are you still here?”
He clears his throat, leaning in to get a better view of the road. Our turn off is coming up and visibility is poor. My heart pounds and my knuckles are clenched white in my lap. “You know everything between us is complicated. It’s not just cut and dry. I made a commitment to you. That commitment has morphed over time, sure, but it’s still there. People discard marriages for far less, I admit. Even sham marriages deserve some effort, don’t they? Things are strained between us. More difficult than I ever imagined when I vowed for better or for worse, but damn it, I’m going to do right by you. I owe it to myself, at the very least, to know I’ve done everything I can do before we throw in the towel. That’s just me. Me.” He releases the steering wheel to place one hand on his chest. “Let me do that!”
I panic. “Don’t let go of the steering wheel, Adam. I know you’re upset, but you need to focus on the road. Please. Please.” I tug on my seat belt and clutch the handle on the door as he makes the turn on our road. A truck approaching in the opposite lane swerves into ours as we turn and it’s a near miss.
Adam pulls on the shoulder of our desolate road, covered in white, and puts the car in park. “We should have waited until we got home to talk about it.”
I’d say anything to calm him down right now. “I understand. I understand. It is complicated. I feel the same way. If by calling our marriage a sham, and separating, we’re somehow making Noel less real. The family. The whole thing. We’d be throwing it all away just because we don’t feel the way we’re supposed to about each other.” I pause, anxiety creeping in with the truth.
Adam stays silent, his head against his hands, against the wheel. “How much longer, Kendall? How much longer do we try?” Admission. He didn’t deny my last statement. He doesn’t feel the way a husband is supposed to feel about his wife.
“I don’t know. This whole time I’ve been confused about how long it’s supposed to take to get back to normal. Maybe this is it. This is the new normal and now we have to decide if it’s enough to keep.”
“It’s killing me slowly. I’m not sure how much more I can take,” Adam replies in a hoarse voice.
“Are you saying you don’t want to try anymore? Call it now?” I ask, voice shaking. The snow is coming down so rapidly, you can hear it roar inside the car.
Adam looks over, his eyes haunted in the dim light. “I’m not saying that unless you are.”
Always, in moments such as this, she creeps in. Noel. Noel. Noel. The life I wanted. The life that will never be. Not exactly that way. Adam and Noel and me. Why I can’t just say it right now. Why I refuse to break that memory in an irreparable way. I swallow hard. “Let’s sleep on it,” I say. “Do you want me to drive the rest of the way home?” Adam puts the car in drive. “I got it. I’m beat, though.”
“It’s been a rough day. Mother nature is giving us a kick in the ass.” Adam drives slowly and pulls into our driveway. He replaced the bulb this morning, so now our whole driveway is lit. Is that a sign? That’s where I’m at these days—grasping at anything that resembles guidance.
“I’ll shovel,” I say. “I want to look for Coal.” Adam never would let me shovel the driveway. Not ever. Not even once.
Today he nods. “Might want to grab the snow blower out of the shed. It’s going to take a while, otherwise.” He parks in the garage and closes the door. We only park in here when we have bad weather.
Grimacing, I agree and follow him into the house to grab my rubber snow boots. Adam goes directly into his office after he grabs a bottle of whiskey and slams the door. I walk out the back door to the shed thinking of my association of Adam and how drastically different he is now. His laugh. The big smile. Contagious happiness. Things I’ve stolen. My breaths come quicker as I drag my feet toward the shed and push the snow blower out and over the same path I cut on the way out. I determine the quickest way to our front drive, and I’m sweating under all my layers as I exert myself.
I keep my eyes peeled for Coal as I walk, but I know turning on this loud machine will scare him from coming out of whatever hiding place he’s found. I switch it on and blow the goddamn snow out on to the road that the city will plow shortly. I have to use the snow shovel to get our walkway and in front of our garage. The whole process takes me double the time it would take Adam. Sometime during the shoveling process, I see Adam’s office light click off.
The house is dark and quiet when I start taking off all of my snow-covered clothes and boots. Coal’s rubber container with the heating pad and food sits untouched by the garage. I made sure a little trail from the side of my house to the box was clear if he made his way out tonight. The snow had already covered the driveway again by the time I finished, but it distracted me enough from my disastrous thoughts and the black place looming. The marriage. My friendship. The cat.
There’s a dim light in the kitchen that tells me Adam turned it on before he went to bed. Showering off the day takes longer tonight. I throw on a t-shirt and my slippers and open Adam’s office door. I see his nearly empty whiskey bottle and a stack of papers sitting next to it.
So, that’s what these look like. I drink directly from the bottle as I familiarize myself with my next reprieve-harboring nightmare.
