his hip, and just then, he looked so much like his mother. It was more than just the shape of his face, the wide forehead, the thin lips. It was his eyes, his expression. Just that morning, when Natalie had walked into Leni’s room at the nursing home, she had given her that exact same look—disoriented and a little frightened, fighting to understand.
She wanted to simplify it for him. She was ready to spoon-feed it to him, in fact. “Dan,” she asked, still calm, neutral. “Do you think I’m smart and interesting?”
He seemed nervous.
She looked away and laughed.
“Sure,” he said.
She looked back at him. “Sure what?”
“Sure you are.” He rolled one hand in circles away from his chest. “And of course you’re a separate person.”
“Do you still love me?”
He didn’t have trouble with this one. He nodded thoughtfully, his bottom lip sticking out. It was the expression of someone who had just been asked if a certain meal at a restaurant was any good.
He saw the way she was looking at him. He rolled his eyes. “We’ve been married a long time,” he said, shrugging a little, as if this were something she, too, might shrug off as well. “Oh Nat,” he said, his annoyance now tempered by pity. “What do you want from me?”
She explained it as best she could. She put the bag of groceries down on the counter so she could use her hands. She wanted her life to mean something. There had to be something it was about. Veronica would be leaving for college soon, and then it would be just the two of them, and if he didn’t love her anymore, what did she have?
“I didn’t say I didn’t love you,” he countered.
She shook her head, though she understood what he meant. Of course you could love someone without being in love. You could settle into comfort, into friendship, even routine. Of course that happened in marriage over time. She would have been able to accept all that, if that was really what was happening between them. But she was suspicious of the way he had phrased his last claim: I didn’t say I didn’t love you. He was avoiding saying that he did. Something else was going on here. This was not comfort or friendship or routine.
And yet he was trying to convince her. She couldn’t think. She had to sit down. She walked into the dining room, leaned on the table, and sank into the closest chair—Elise’s, when she was home.
“Honey,” he said. He followed her halfway, leaning against the frame of the dining room’s entry. “Come on. Can I get you something to drink? Do you want some tea?”
She shook her head. Bowzer’s cold nose nuzzled against her limp hand. He circled twice beside her chair before he lay down, his head resting on her feet.
“We have a good family,” he said. “You’re a wonderful mother. And you’re being so good to my mother. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you do for her.”
She shook her head. She wanted him to stop talking. “We should get a divorce,” she said.
“What?” He had a double chin when he pulled his head back. And still, still, even now, even in this horrible moment, she still could love him if only he would try to say the right thing. He looked at her over the bifocals. “What are you talking about? Why do you want a divorce?”
“Because you may love me, but you don’t find me interesting. And you don’t think I’m smart enough to notice.”
He started immediate damage control. He hurried over to the table. He sat down next to her and tried to hold her hand. She wouldn’t let him.
“Oh come on,” he said, as if she were being petulant, a child making a fuss. He sat up and tapped his forehead with his finger. “You know what? This is silly. I am in love with you, Nat. Of course I am.”
She moved her hand across her face. It came back wet. She was crying. She hadn’t even known.
He shook his head, resolute. “I don’t want to get a divorce.”
“Why not?”
He laughed—just briefly—a short, hard exhale through a smile of disbelief. It was as if she had asked the stupidest question in the world. When her face didn’t move, when she didn’t even blink, he realized he had to say something. And that’s when she understood. Because he hesitated, and because he seemed so certain, and because she understood him