“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t take my frustration out on you. You’ve been nothing but a good sport through everything. This is all my fault.”
Liam’s about to speak, but his cell phone cuts him off. He gesturesone secondto me and answers it, getting up from the table and walking away to face out the window.
“Hey, John,” he says. “Yes, I know, I sent you an email. Today just didn’t work for me. I had an emergency.”
He continues to look out the window, and I inwardly wish he would turn around so I could read his face.
“Yes, I think next week would be much better. Tuesday... I’ll call you to confirm.” He pauses and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “I will,” he goes on. “I will call you back. It’s just that I’ve been increasingly busy with other endeavors as of late. Yes. Well, I’m at an appointment at the moment, so I’ll reach out in the next week or two.” Another pause. “Next week, then. Alright...take care, John. Cheers.”
He hangs up, and after a few unusually long moments, he turns around to me. “Sorry about that. It was one of my old work associates.”
“Sounds like he was eager to meet with you.”
“I suppose he is. We were meant to catch up this afternoon, but obviously that didn’t work out.”
I think he’s going to sit back down, but he doesn’t. It makes me feel a little uneasy.
“Liam, you shouldn’t have canceled because of me. I could have taken a train to Abinger.”
“No, I was happy to take you. The meeting wasn’t important.”
“It sounded important to whoever you were talking to.”
Liam starts to shift around on his heels, first looking at the door and then the kitchen cabinets, but not at me. “I’ve known John for years. He’ll be fine with meeting next week instead.”
“Do you not like your job?” I find myself asking. “Sometimes when you talk about it, you seem like you love it, but then other times, you seem so detached. Why is that?”
“Those are all extremely interesting questions. Questions I will happily answer at another point in time.”
“If you don’t like it, why not just give it up? You sold the company. They must be doing well enough on their own. Why not move on?”
“I don’t know, Winnie,” he says, finally giving me the eye contact I’m after. My gaze is determined and his shoulders slump ever so slightly as he speaks again. “Perhaps I’m not ready to move on. That company was the one thing I did right. It was my only success, and I sold it to the highest bidder when I should have stayed with my employees who trusted me and who depended on me. And even now, it’s a year later, and rather than fulfilling my obligation to my buyers, I’m choosing to drag the process on and on. I must get some kind of sick enjoyment from constantly reminding myself that not only did I ruin my life personally, but I’m now ruining it professionally as well.”
Silence fills the room after that, and Liam takes a defeated breath. “I didn’t tell you the full extent of my contract when I agreed to the sale. I told you I signed on to work for them for a year, but what I didn’t tell you was that I actually agreed to work in their Paris office. So not only would I be going back to work, but I’d be going back in a completely different country. They’re being incredibly lenient by allowing me to delay for this long.”
The news hits me like a bit of a wrecking ball, and I shake my head as I try to clear my thoughts.
“Oh, wow,” I say, my voice lacking the enthusiasm I was aiming for. “But that doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. You should try to see it as a fresh start.”
“Maybe I don’t want a fresh start.”
“And maybe that’s exactly why you need it.”
Liam looks away at that, and I can tell he’s reverting back inside himself. I opt not to add anything else, not wanting to push him any more than I already have. He slowly moves through the apartment, pausing when he takes note of my suitcase and the travel dog carrier I bought for Ollie that’s sitting on the floor.
“When did you pick that up?” he asks, gently nudging the carrier with the tip of his foot.
“Just yesterday. I was passing the pet supply store, and I figured I might as well buy it, since we’ll be leaving soon enough.”
Liam nods, continuing to drift through the apartment. “I sometimes forget that you’re leaving at all. And then I don’t quite know what to make of it when I do remember.”
I offer him a smile to lighten the mood. It doesn’t help, but I keep it up anyways. “It’s probably like when the circus comes to town. You’ll be sad when we go at first, but soon enough, you’ll be grateful for the silence.”
“But that’s just it,” Liam says. “I’ve been living in silence for so long that I couldn’t stop myself from hoping for noise. And now that I have it...” He trails off, and I let him. “I don’t know. I think I’m rambling at this point.”
“Rambling can be nice,” I tell him.
“I guess it can be. Do you ever ramble?”
