Page 84 of Anywhere with You
But there was nothing. There was no way I could’ve guessed that Bridget and Lorenzo had been together for months.
Finally, I took the picture from my bedside table and stared at Bridget and my younger self, so beautiful in our wedding gowns, beaming with joy and love and hope.
I took a special trip to the dumpster and tossed it, and when I heard the glass shatter, I didn’t look back.
After Cara had come into the store that first day, asking if I knew, I’d wondered if Ishouldhave known, if the evidence was everywhere and I’d been too in love or too self-obsessed or just too busy to notice.
But no. Here I was, looking for the evidence, and there was nothing.
So why had Cara come to the store that first time? Why ask if I knew? What difference could it have made to her?
It was one more question that I hadn’t thought to ask.
Maybe once Lorenzo was gone, she was looking for someone else to blame. But that wasn’t Cara.
What would have been going through her mind? I tried to put myself there, in her place, walking through the door, hearing the little bell ring.
I thought of today’s Mesmio reel, about her trying to figure out what her life would be from now on.
She was grieving, full of disbelief that her marriage was over, full of blame, but not toward me. No, if I knew Cara, she already had a target for all that loathing: herself.
She was hoping…she was hoping that I’d known about the affair for months, too. That I’d done everything I could to save my marriage, too. That we could both feel foolish and betrayed and angry together. That by sharing it, maybe we could carry the weight.
Because Cara hated to go it alone.
My eyes closed in pain for her.
It was a guess, all of it, but I had no doubt that if Cara and I ever spoke about it, she would tell me that I was right. Consciously or subconsciously, she’d only been looking for an ally in her pain.
Chapter Thirty-four
I started driving by her apartment on my way to work. It was on the way, I told myself. I didn’t stop, just slowed enough to look for a bright orange car, a little worse for wear.
She said she was taking the scenic route, and I checked Mesmio often, but she’d stopped posting. I worried about her. If she was out there on the side of the road somewhere, would another Mildred and Jeffrey turn up to rescue her?
I started going by on my way home, too. She still wasn’t back, so every day, I went home and fretted while I packed and drank.
I wanted to reach out to her, everything else be damned. I wanted to touch her over the distance, to hold her hand, to soothe her worries. When had this happened, this obsession with whether she was happy or not? I was happier when I was just obsessed with her lips, but now, I wanted to see those lips so I’d know if they were smiling or frowning, and whether I was the cause.
The worst thing was that Icouldreach her. This wasn’t a Victorian romance when all I had were letters and weeks of waiting. I could call her or text her. I could make her a reel. I could get back on a goddamned plane and go get her. I couldn’t stop being aware of all the options I was too cowardly to take.
I’d started my own business, gotten married, and survived the failure of my marriage. I did what I wanted to do. I believed in living bravely and taking chances, even, occasionally, stupid and impulsive chances.
But I couldn’t call Cara. I got the same paralyzed feeling as when I’d stood in my office a week ago, holding the envelope that would tellme I was getting divorced. I couldn’t do it. I was worse than a chicken. I was a rabid javelina who disappeared as soon as her back was turned.
I laughed, snorting wine.
“This is what pathetic looks like,” I told Badger. “You may not be familiar with the sight, but you should get used to it.”
Cara and I hadn’t talked about what our incredible day together meant. There hadn’t been much time, but maybe there was another reason. Maybe we hadn’t been eager to ask questions neither of us could answer. We were married, both of us ending long relationships, both of us recently heartbroken. It wasn’t smart to think about a real relationship, let alone talk about one.
But I didn’t have to think about it to know that what I felt for Cara wasn’t casual. It wasn’t a momentary attraction, a fling of opportunity. God, I wish it had been. That would’ve been much more convenient.
It wasn’t fleeting, but what was it? Or I supposed the right question was, what could it have been? I would’ve given a lot to find out what we would’ve become, with time, with freedom, with a return to our normal lives with all the associated pressure.
I thought, for the first time, about Cara in my real life, stopping by my store, coming by my new apartment, helping me find those little things, those porcelain sugar bowls, to make my everyday life a little better, a little nicer, a little sweeter.
God, I missed her.
