“Well, it’s just that we—you and I have never talked about your wife.”
Not what I was expecting. She pronounces Joanna’s title hard and clipped as if it’s cursed. Forbidden. Perhaps it should be.
Wife.
Outside, the wind howls, slamming against the bedroom windows. We’re in for another bad storm. “We haven’t talked about her because there’s no reason to. She’s not my future. You are.”
There. Cut and dried. Conversation finished before it could begin.
“Good night,” I go on, hopeful.
“But…”
“What, Colleen?” I snap. “Why would you want to know anything about my wife? Our marriage is over.” Only it isn’t. Not legally, anyway. But in every other sense of the term, Joanna is dead to me. “I thought we agreed to leave the past in the past and focus on our future.”
“I know, I know that’s what you said, but—”
“But what?” Anger scrapes away at my insides. “You suddenly want to know everything about her? All the juicy details of our marriage? Why? What good would that do either of us?”
She looks away as if I’ve struck her. “I guess I’m just curious,” she whispers.
“Curiosity killed the cat, remember?” I scrub my hands through my hair as if that’ll help me understand how this evening unraveled so quickly. “You want to know? Fine. We met at a charity function in the city, we were married five years—only truly happy for a fraction of that time—and then she left me.”
Silence seems to stretch for minutes, and I breathe deeply, thankful she’s finally dropped the subject.
“If you weren’t happy,” she asks, “why didn’t you get a divorce?”
“For the love of God, Colleen, drop it,” I holler. “I don’t want to talk about my wife again. I don’t even want to hear her name. Not tonight, not ever.” I’m shaking with rage. Why wouldn’t she just leave it alone?
As I turn over, dragging the covers over my chin, I feel the weight of her body turn on the bed, away from me. This was how I remembered the long winter nights with Joanna. Guilt-filled silence. A bare shoulder trembling in the moonlight. I don’t want to upset Colleen, but why can’t she understand? I don’t want to talk about Joanna. To relive those memories. I want to move on. And before tonight, I thought we had an unspoken pact: no discussion of former loved ones. With Colleen, I’d found a unique sense of freedom I hadn’t felt with anyone else. Because she didn’t ask pestering questions about Joanna and our marriage, I could be a new man—one deserving of her love, living with a clean slate.
I won’t let Joanna’s memory ruin what I have with Colleen.
When she sighs heavily, I reach over and switch off the light.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she says in the dark. “I only want to make sure I’m doing everything right, the way it’s supposed to be. I’m trying to be the perfect girlfriend.”
“Try harder.”
Damn it.
I should’ve kept that last part to myself.
I don’t know how we’ve come to this place, a stalemate. We used to be unable to keep our hands off each other. Now, although there are only a few inches between us, the distance is a canyon, and I can’t cross it without knowing if she wants me to.
“Colleen,” I say after a few quiet minutes. “Are you still awake?”
She never answers.
I close my eyes and pray for sleep to hit fast, but the recurring nightmare is already taking form, blurring the line between memory and dream. I can hear the jingle of Joanna’s keys as she walks up the drive. And in that split second before sleep sucks me back in time, I can almost feel the anger lashing through my body as I slam Joanna against the wall.