“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He glances at Hannah, who is a few feet away now, watching for the taxi, and says quietly, “You’re going to end up marrying that guy, aren’t you?”
I ignore the pain at the words. “Almost definitely not.”
A taxi pulls up, and he looks back at me. “I wish I’d done things better. I’m sorry.” It’s the most honest apology I ever remember getting from him.
I clear my throat. “You’re going to be amazing on that tour. I’m really proud of you.”
“Thanks.” He smiles once, that old, crooked smile that once sent me reeling, and then kisses Hannah on her head and turns to get in the car.
When he is gone, Hannah looks up at me. “Do you still love Daddy?” Her insightful streak has its usual annoying timing.
“Of course. But he and I are not going to be a couple again. You know that, right?”
Hannah considers this. “You could marry him again if you want to. But you should only do what you want to do,” she says. It’s the eight-year-old’s version of wisdom, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
The next weekend,I fly up with Hannah to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to drop her off with my sister, and I spend the weekend with Abby and her fiancé Paul in Paul’s adorable yellow townhouse in the middle of the downtown. Everything about St. John’s feels foreign to me. It looks like some Irish or Scandinavian port city, remote and quietly adorable, but I let Abby try to convince me that it feels like Brooklyn. “We can walk to two different coffee shops!” she insists —and I pretend to agree. I know she’s more in love with Paul than with anything else here, but it’s nice to see her happy and reassuring to see that she and Hannah are immediately on solid ground. Within ten minutes of arriving, they are racing down the sidewalks singing Disney songs together. It makes me feel less guilty for leaving Hannah with Abby for three weeks.
When I return home by myself two days later, I get my courage together and finally text Ollie.
Hey,I write,Nick is back on tour, and Hannah is in Canada with my sister for a couple of weeks. I am free if you want to meet up or talk.
He calls me an hour later.
“Hi!” I try to sound cheerful.
“How is your ex doing?” Ollie asks, his voice sounding distant and polite. “He’s recovered?”
“Yes, he’s fine. You could drag a touring musician behind an 18-wheeler, and they’d still be on their feet to do the next show. He has to wear a brace on his wrist, but he’s totally fine. I know that whole thing had terrible timing, but I want to tell you again that nothing is going on with him. It didn’t, it hasn’t, and it won’t.”
There is a long pause. “Laura.” Another pause, so long and deep that it feels like I’m walking through a tunnel. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Oh.” I feel a gust of terror rising in my chest, ready to blow through me.
“It’s not even…it’s not that I think anything happened with him, but I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with you. You’re too involved with him, and you have a kid together…”
“No.” My voice sounds shaky. “This was Nick pulling his usual bullshit, but I can assure you it was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. And I would not have asked him if Hannah hadn’t overheard me talking about how he was injured. She gets so little time with her father. I had trouble saying no to her, not to him.”
“But that’s my point. With Hannah involved, it’s complicated. And if I were in a different place, and not going through my own stuff, I could handle it, but I was talking to a friend of mine, and I think that maybe I’m not ready for dating. I know we…” He pauses. His voice sounds unsteady, full of feeling. “I know we talked about that as a joke, but maybe we both were being more truthful than we realized.”
“Okay.” I’m trying not to react.
“After the way my marriage ended, I can’t be in a situation where…it just feels like any second this will blow up.”
I can’t help but be angry; I don’t want to be angry. “Ollie, you pushed me away. You told me not to call you until Nick was gone. And now you’re acting like I’m the one who withdrew from you. I did what you askedme to. I could have called you every day,every day, and told you I wasn’t in love with him, but you wouldn’t talk to me.”
“I know. It’s my problem, not yours.”
As soon as someone pulls out, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ the discussion is over. That’s why it’s the greatest hit in break-ups. You can’t respond to it. It draws an uncrossable line in the sand.
“Maybe if I was capable of dating you casually, it would be different, but I’m not.” So now he likes metoo muchto be withme. That’s a good one, I think. Nick would be proud of that level of pretzel logic. “I’m better as your friend right now.”
I realize this is timed conveniently with our committee work, too; it means that we weren’t lying at all. I don’t bother to ask him about Eliana. I don’t ask if Eliana is the friend he confided in, the one who told him he wasn’t ready to date me. I know I can’t do that and not sound hysterical, jealous, screaming and begging him not to do this to us. I have some pride.
“I understand.”
I don’t understand, but I end the call as quickly as I can and then sit alone on my bed, my knees shaking. There’s a hollow place in the middle of my chest as my eyes drift to the buildings outside: the burning brick red from the setting sun and the lemon glow from shops. I had this whole plan that I was going to become an amazing dancer and then win him back, but my plan is unwinnable. It was always going to be unwinnable, because I’m a single parent.
