The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,95

up. I cannot hurt this wonderful man I’ve loved for so long. I had an immediate sense of the momentous consequence of whatever I said next. There was so much at stake. I pulled him back up on the couch. Where did I begin? Hadn’t I wanted this? Hadn’t I wished for this? “Thank you,” I said. I had to do this just right. Was there any way to do this right?

He laughed. “So?” he asked.

“So,” I breathed. How did I do this? Don’t make me do this!

I’d paused too long. “Cam?”

I shook my head. “I can’t answer you right now.”

His lips parted, his eyes immediately wounded. I felt his natural recoil, the pulling away from me, but I grasped his hands and said, “I’m not saying no. I’m saying not yet. I’m saying there are too many issues that need to be resolved first, before I can . . . before we can know if this is right.”

His eyes glittered orange in the firelight. “It is right. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

“I’m sure that I love you, Vijay. But . . . you’re . . . you’re not really available.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your job. Or, I guess, your jobs. They consume you—they’re important, and you’re fabulous at them. And I would never, ever be the woman who asks you to give any of that up. It makes you who you are and I understand that. But it also makes you not available.”

“It would be different if we were in the same city. It’s the distance that makes it—”

“Half the time, you’re not in your city.”

“But when I am, we’d be together, which would—“

“Vijay, sweetie, I was in your city, remember? I spent the entire time alone.”

“It’s not always like that, Cami. That was a rare thing.”

I nodded, kindly, but said, “The baby shower? The fiftieth anniversary? The six dance classes? Vijay, I love you. I truly do, but I think if I lived with you, I’d be alone all the time.”

“Those are— No, seriously, Cami. It won’t be like that.”

I stroked his high cheekbone with my thumb. “Then we’d need to keep dating a while, until I saw that. Until I believed that. That’s what I mean by ‘not yet.’ I love being with you. But for me to leave everything, my practice, my farm, I’d have to know I was getting something to make all that loss worth it. You would be worth it—well, well worth it—but not if I never saw you.”

He stared off into the fire. “I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m—” He looked at me, more humbled than I’d ever seen him.

“Vijay, I love you. But I’m not sure we’d have a partnership. If I’m going to do this again, I want it to be better. Don’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

“We . . . you and I feel very unbalanced.” I scooted sideways, so that my entire body faced him. “I’m not saying any of this to hurt you.” I took his hands. “Everything we do, every time we get together, every single time we communicate, is your choice. You control it all. And I know it’s because of your work. But I want you to imagine what that feels like.”

He mulled this. “But you have your own work. You’re devoted to your work, too.”

I nodded. “And what about that? I own my own practice here, Vijay.”

“Veterinarians can work anywhere.”

“Doctors can work anywhere.”

He frowned.

“See? There are some things we need to work on. Work on together to find solutions that satisfy us both. Let’s not have some half-assed, un-thought-out marriage that fails, like we’ve both already had. Let’s have a kick-ass marriage. Let’s figure out a way to be remarkable.”

Gerald hopped to the back of the couch and butted my shoulder, then rubbed his face against my cheek. He lay on the top of the couch, as if to watch the proceedings.

Vijay’s expression about killed me. I felt like something had been irretrievably lost. We sat, leaning together, my head on his shoulder, his head on mine, staring at the fire, holding hands, Gerald’s tail gently tapping our heads on occasion.

“I’m going to go,” he whispered.

I didn’t question it. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. I followed him upstairs while he gathered his things. Gabriella’s door was closed, the light out under the door frame.

After I kissed him at the back door, he paused. “Did you say no because of—” He looked out the door. “That guy? The one