I once watched a natural dam break on television. I remember seeing a scenic picture of a river surrounded by trees. All of a sudden, the trees disappeared — sucked away by the collapse of the riverbank. A swell of angry water rushed around the corner, wiping out everything in its path. It was sudden, and it was violent.
I see the dam break in Caleb’s eyes.
Human eyes are the sign language of the brain. If you watch them carefully, you can see the truth played out, raw and unguarded. When you are the bastard child of a prostitute and you need to know what your adoptive parents are thinking, you learn how to read eyes. You can see a lie prod the truth, a hurt be swept into a cranial recess, happiness as a wide luminescent light. You can see the crushing of a soul beneath a terrible loss. What I see in Caleb’s eyes is a leftover hurt; hurt with mold growing on it. Hurt so profound that blood and tears and regret cannot possibly do it justice.
What does she have that I don’t have? She owns the deed to his house and to his hurt. I am so jealous of his hurt that I throw my head back and open my mouth to scream in rage. He won’t hear me. No matter how loudly I scream his name, he will not hear me. He only hears her.
“She wouldn’t do that,” he says.
“She did. She is a deceiver. She is not what you think.”
“You did that to her apartment,” he says. His eyes are wide, bleary.
I look away, ashamed. But, no, I am not ashamed. I fought for what I wanted.
“Why her, Caleb?”
He looks at me blandly. I don’t expect him to answer. When his voice breaks the tense air between us, I stop breathing to hear him.
“I didn’t choose her,” his voice breaks. “Love is illogical. You fall into it like a manhole. Then you’re just stuck. You die in love more than you live in love.”
I don’t want to hear his poetic analogies. I want to know why he loves her. I finger the gold hoop earrings I’m wearing. I bought them after I met her at the diner. They don’t have the same effect on me. Where they made her look exotic, I look like I’m playing dress-up. I yank them from my ears and toss them away from me.
But, I can be what he needs. He just needs to give me the chance to prove it.
“You need to come home.”
He drops his head. I want to scream — LOOK AT ME!
When he does, his eyes are raw.
“I filed the papers, Leah. It’s over.”
Papers?
I say the word. It whispers from my lips — burns them. “Papers?”
My marriage is worth more than something as thin and insubstantial as papers. You cannot end something with that vile word. Caleb is a man used to getting his way. Not now. I will fight him on this.
“We can go to counseling. For Estella.”
Caleb shakes his head. “You need someone to be able to love you the way you deserve to be loved. I’m so sorry — ” He clenches his jaw, looks at me almost pleadingly, like he needs me to understand. “I can’t give you that. God, I wish I could, Leah. I’ve tried.”
I think about that, I do. I think about the time I caught him looking at Olivia like she was the only f**king thing that mattered on the whole f**king planet, and the time he kept her ice cream/finger in the freezer for two years. What type of love was that? Obsessive? What had she done to get his brain wired to her circuit board? I am so out of breath after I am done thinking these things that I spin for the doors that sit off the kitchen and shove them open. The air outside is thick and still. It feels like jello, and I feel like every bone in my heart is breaking. I pace the patio, and in seconds, I can feel my shirt sticking to my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Caleb follow me outside. He has his hands in his pockets, and he’s biting his upper lip.
I rifle through my bag of tricks. I look at his face: hard, determined, sorry. I don’t want his sorry. I want what Olivia has. I want to be enough for him.
Honesty is sticky, and I hate it. It always has consequences that f**k up your life … God, I’d rather just wade around the truth and find a lie I can live with. That’s what I call compromise. Knowing that my husband loves someone else and living with it … that’s a truth you don’t look in the eye, and now he was forcing me to.
I stop pacing and stand in front of him with my hands squared on my hips.
“I won’t sign the papers. I’ll fight you.”
I want to slap him when he narrows his eyes and shakes his head at me.
“Why do you want that for yourself, Leah?”
What I want for myself is the family I put together through blood, sweat and toil. I want it all to mean something. I won, fair and square. The bitch had him between her fist, and I took him back. Why is my f**king prize trying to divorce me? I collect myself, all the shredded angry pieces, and I rope them back together so I can take control. Vicious doesn’t work with Caleb. You can reason with him. He has stout British honor and American practicality.
“I want what you swore to give me. You said you’d never hurt me! You said you’d love me for better or worse!”
“I did. I didn’t know…” He covers his face with his hands. I’m not sure if I want him to go on. His accent, his goddamn accent.
“You didn’t know what, Caleb? That you were still hung up on your first love?”
His head comes up. I’ve caught his attention.
“I found the ring. After you had the accident. Why did you buy me a ring if you still loved her?”