this summer: bare, glistening skin. Jumping off the weathered dock. The lean muscles in his back bunching, every ligament springing to life.
Someday, for some woman, he’ll feel like parting the curtains in an upper window, dust motes swirling in a sunny room, peering down on the curving back of a man building your children a swing set. He’ll be a thick wedding band of solid silver, the only place on his hand that doesn’t tan in the summer. He’ll feel like two old trees growing together, branches plaiting into an embrace.
I wish I could see inside his head to know how he feels about me. I don’t want to ask, because what if he says the past few weeks haven’t been enough? What if he thinks we’re unsalvageable? That’s what I’d thought, but I’m not so sure anymore. I want to think that he’s here with me because he wants to be, not because he’s measuring all the inconveniences of splitting up and decided making it work is the easier option. He could be anywhere, with anyone, but he’s here with me. That’s got to mean something.
I’m staring at this man and thinking about the straw wrapper bracelet he keeps in a drawer.
There are hurts. I feel them all over, like stab wounds: the distance that we both allowed to settle in, ruining what should have been the happiest year of our lives. The ring that makes me feel like a fraud because it’s so huge. As ridiculous as it might sound, in my mind he gave me such a big diamond as a way of saying I love you THIS much!; but how could he have loved me THAT much when we still didn’t completely know each other? When we’d never argued before and didn’t live together and it was such smooth sailing. Way too good to be true.
He’s seen me take it off a couple times. I told him the diamond is too gaudy, but in truth it didn’t occur to me he’d care, because I didn’t care myself. I bet he cared, though. I bet he hated that I took off his ring.
I hold it over my face again, flashing it from left to right to catch the blaze of the fire, and I see what he saw when he picked it out. I see my hand from his point of view, not mine. How it would glow with promise. I wonder what I feel like to him. What memories and possibilities run across his mind when he wants to touch me but feels that’s not his privilege anymore.
For the first time since he presented it to me, I study my ring and think it’s stunning. It’s exactly the ring he should have picked. I’ll never forgive myself for the moments I took it off.
He’s radiant, lying here. Scintillating and golden. Nicholas is a rare, wonderful man, and I’m going to be so sorry if I have to give his ring back.
In early December, Nicholas and I are still miraculously getting along. It’s hard to trust, but all my reasons for feeling detached and resentful in the past have crumbled in light of Nicholas’s newfound attentiveness. He’s putting me first. He’s been kind and reassuring. He stood up to Deborah on Thanksgiving, and the following night he literally banished her from the house.
I still can’t believe he did that.
When these truths sink in, he doesn’t feel like my adversary or the obstacle in my path to finding happiness. He feels like part of the path. Against all wisdom, I fall a little bit in love with pretending it won’t fall apart. And in the spirit of this, I do a very scary thing.
I open up a new password-protected document on my computer and jot down ideas for tokens of affection. If this isn’t a fluke, and if this is to work—if—I’ll need to consistently make Nicholas feel cherished in small but significant ways. The most important and most challenging element is typed at the top so that I won’t forget: Keep doing this even if he doesn’t reciprocate in an immediately obvious way. I have to give while expecting nothing in return; otherwise, the gestures are empty. I hope I won’t be the only one here trying.
One morning after Nicholas’s shower, I draw a heart in the steamy bathroom mirror. He ducks back into the bathroom to brush his teeth and after he’s left it again I find another heart he’s drawn, interlocked in mine.