Raffi is going to be coming out any second and if he sees us in this standoff, he’s going to know something is terribly wrong without us having to tell him.
I finally step aside, my arms tightly crossed against mychest. I point toward the hallway with my chin. “If you’re leaving, then…”Do it now.
His eyes drop. “I’ll go.”
And just like that, we’re sliding past one another in a tight doorway. We don’t touch, our hearts pass within an inch.
And that, friends, is what a conversation with my husband is like!
Okay, okay, so maybe I haven’t been a total peach this year either.
Those first few weeks after the accident…
A snapshot: Me awake at foura.m.in sweatpants I haven’t changed in two days. I’m on the couch in the living room so I don’t wake up Vin, who is sleeping fitfully anyways. The lights are off even though I know I should just give in and turn them on and read, because who am I fooling? I’m not going to sleep. Then there’s a noise, it’s Vin. He’s up and stumbling out of our room. Shoot. He woke up and I wasn’t there. He’s come to find me. But he hasn’t. He doesn’t notice me on the couch. He goes straight for the industrial-sized bottle of ibuprofen on the kitchen counter. He takes the medicine and drinks straight from the faucet, rests against the counter with his eyes closed, goes back to bed.
And then I’m awake before sunrise, sweating and aggravated, clinging two-handedly to a cup of coffee that does nothing but make me nervous. Check the schedule for doctor’s appointments, phone calls with our lawyers, and errands (usually to the pharmacy) that need to be done. Make breakfast. And then the fun stuff. Changing Raffi’s bandages, administering pain meds. He was badly concussed from the accident and had to have major surgery on his dominant arm, so…in addition to housing him in our guest room I was also helping him get dressed and wash his hair and eat. I was the only one of the three of us who wasn’t injured enough to haveto take leave from work, but I took it anyways just so they’d have someone there to put meals on the table and count NSAIDs. Vin’s injuries were technically less severe than Raffi’s—he hadn’t needed surgery—but he still needed everything else. Pain meds, bandage changing, and PT so he could get used to how to move his body with a fourteen-inch scar down his back.
Then the months after the accident…
A snapshot: Vin’s back at work, so a lot of the time it’s just me and Raffi. Raffi’s still on leave. Four times a week we head to PT, where he spends time practicing how to pick up a pencil and squeezing stress balls for strength. He gets so frustrated that sometimes he screams into our couch pillows when he gets home. I’ve learned how to (metaphorically) tap-dance. Anything and everything to keep Raff buoyant. Movie marathons, online shopping, tea parties, at-home pedicures, literally anything he wants to eat. When he goes to sleep, I go to sleep, utterly exhausted. Most nights, I only know Vin’s finally home from work when the sheets tug against me as he’s crawling into bed.
Then two months ago…
A snapshot: We’re all back at work now. Raffi’s doing so much better. Taking life by the horns again. Correspondingly (now that I’m not the one driving his ship) I’m starting to buckle. I spend more and more time in my bed, Raff spends more and more time wheedling me out into the world with cronuts and trips to the Museum of Ice Cream. We spend one weekend moving him into his new apartment. When we get back home, Vin sits on the couch, completely wiped. “Well,” he says with a shrug. And that about sums it up. It’s just the two of us again. The silence from Raff’s recently vacated room is excruciating. The silence in our bed that night is even more excruciating. We barely sleep. Our house feels wrong withoutRaff. Our house feels wrong with just the two of us. It’s suddenly extremely clear that we have nothing to say to one another if Raff isn’t there, ricocheting our words back and forth. I sleep on the farthest edge of the bed I possibly can and wake up with no covers. Vin’s already gone to work. I don’t see him until dinnertime. He asks me a question about our electricity bill and then goes to bed. This goes on for two days.
On the third day, I’m reading in bed and Vin is standing next to it. He picks up his pillow.
“I’m just gonna…” he says, and points behind him, toward the guest room.
He sleeps there that night. And he never comes back.
When Raff emerges from his bedroom, Vin is gone and I’m safely ensconced in the tiny kitchen. I’ve decided to hide the tremble in my heart by slicing the baguette laid out on the counter. I have the general idea to just do an impression of myself tonight. That should disguise the wreckage, right?
“Smells great!” Raff calls as he tosses his towel into the bathroom.
“Why do you sound surprised? Didn’t you make it? And go hang up your towel, you mongrel.”
He pops into the bathroom and back out. “You’re the one who made dinner.”
“Me?”
“Vin brought it over. I just boiled the pasta.”
I set down the bread knife and eye the stove. There’s pasta in a colander and…a pot of something that does, indeed, smell delicious. My blood’s gone cold.
Raffi’s voice fades out behind me and my steps echo. I approach the stove, reach out a hand, lift the lid, and—dammit! The lid is hot and I jostle the pot trying to get my hand free. A mini tsunami of Divorce Tomato Sauce douses me from boobs to hips.
“Are you all right?” Raff is at my side, eyes wide, handing me paper towels.
I close my eyes and let out a long breath. “Fine.”
When I open my eyes, my white T-shirt and jean shorts are still ruined. I look like I belong in an episode ofCSI.
As I stand there, covered in sauce, my resolve wobbles. I almost tell Raff everything. He’s my best friend and I need him. But then those recent, injured months rear up within me again. I’ve gotten it reversed. Really, I’mhisbest friend and he needsme.My first instincts were right. If I tell him that Vin is moving out, he’s going to break.
“You have anything I can change into?” I ask.
“Sure. Go get cleaned up. I’ll grab it.” His eyes are still wide.
