Page 6 of Everything We Give

“I saw James.” She then told me everything, and I mean everything.

We’d known James had surfaced from the fugue state the previous December. Kristen had told Aimee about James’s call to Nick, Kristen’s husband and James’s best friend. We knew James would return home. The question was when.

Well, I got my answer over a shot of vodka. He arrived the day before I left for Spain, Aimee told me. After dropping me off at the airport, Aimee had driven to James’s house. She hadn’t meant to see him, but she couldn’t seem to drive away. Then suddenly he was there, on the sidewalk, knocking on the passenger-side window. And she let him into the car.

“Do you love him?” I asked.

“No. Not in the way that matters.” Ribbons of tears cut across her cheeks.

“What’s the way that matters, Aimee? Do tell. Because to me, love is love.” I bit out the words, letting her hear my anger, my shock at finding out she’d kissed him. That James had pulled her onto his lap, and that his hands had been all over her.

“I am notin lovewith him.”

I felt my eyes harden, my expression chill, as I looked at her across the table. She was miserable. Her hand shook when she reached for the bottle, only to pull away. She folded her hands in her lap.

The kitchen was quiet; we were quiet, sitting on opposite sides in the dim light. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes when I asked, “Do you want to be with him?”

“No.” She looked at me, appalled.“No!”she repeated more firmly. “I love you, Ian. I’minlove with you. I’m sorry I went to see him. I didn’t mean for it to get out of control the way it did and I can’t apologize enough. I’m sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

I poured myself a shot, then another.

She watched me, and she watched the bottle, the quick pours into my shot glass and my fast empties as I tossed them back. “Say something,” she whispered when I finished.

I slowly shook my head. “I don’t think I should right now.” I excused myself and retired to my office. I told myself I needed time to sort this out. I needed to believe she did love me and wouldn’t leave me. But the truth? I didn’t need to convince myself of anything. I knew she loved me. I knew in my gut she wouldn’t leave me. As to forgiving her? I already had, long before James returned since I knew he eventually would. That’s how much I loved her. But it hurt. It hurt big-time.

Over the next few days, we talked about it, and gradually, over the summer, we eased back into a comfortable rhythm, though not quite at the same beat. But we survived James’s return. Our marriage was still intact. Or so I thought it was.

“I’m coming over. Tell Aimee not to leave.” Whatever James said to her, whatever hedidto her, I needed to know what happened, rightnow. Not in an hour. Not tonight. And especially not tomorrow. Because the last time James was in town, he kissed my wife.

Scratch that. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a hands-all-over-James-would-have-fucked-her kiss had Aimee given him the chance. Had she told him yes.

But she hadn’t.

Thank God Aimee didn’t go back to him. Thank God James moved to Hawaii.

Then why is he back and what does he want with Aimee?

My wife.

The possessive thought punches through my skull as I hang up with Nadia and grab the car keys. Wondering what James will do and what he did with Aimee this afternoon has me racing down the freeway to Nadia’s flat in downtown San Jose.

I jab the code for Nadia’s underground parking garage and tuck the car into a guest spot. Within minutes, I knock on her door and she immediately answers as though she were standing on the other side, waiting. She smiles, lips closed and brows raised, and steps aside. I take it as a silent message of good luck. My heart taps a nervous, rapid rhythm against my sternum.

Any man—straight or swinging for the other team—would be captivated by Nadia’s auburn hair, jade eyes, and sharp facial structure. She possesses the type of beauty you can’t look away from, which is what I set out to achieve in the series of photos I took of her a couple of years ago. They’re mounted on the far wall of her open-space flat. I intensified the red of her hair and green of her eyes, a striking contrast to the living space’s palette of grays and wood grains.

But I don’t see these portraits. Nothing about my surroundings registers. I only have eyes for Aimee. She stands across the room, arms folded tightly so that her fingers dig into her lower rib cage. She stares out the window, a wall of glass looking out to the city’s lit downtown. Dusk has arrived, lending just enough light in Nadia’s darkened apartment to illuminate the moisture on Aimee’s cheeks.

I briefly close my eyes and send up a prayer of thanks. She’s here and she’s unharmed. Pressure builds in my chest with each rise and fall, pulling me in her direction. I want nothing more than to have her in my arms, to reassure myself that she is mine.

Nadia closes the door behind me.

“How long has she been here?” I ask.

“About ten minutes before you called. I’d just gotten home from work.”

Not long then, which means she was with James for at least as long as I tried to reach her. One and a half hours.

I swallow roughly. A lot can happen in ninety minutes.

---