Lisa Unger - Die For You

She remembered that closed-down, shut-off feeling from the night her father killed himself, as if some critical part of her had drifted off into space. When she could feel anything at all, it was only rage. If he’d loved her, he’d have remembered the moon was full. He’d have remembered the night belonged to her. He’d have known she’d find him. She’d always believed this in her darkest heart. But now she understood he hadn’t been thinking about anything except his own unbearable psychic pain.

When she wept in her husband’s arms then, she knew it was the first time she’d allowed herself to really cry for her father. She wept for him as much as she did for everything she’d almost destroyed in her life because she just couldn’t let him go.

Hello, Moonbeam .

Good-bye, Daddy .

THE MOON WAS full and high in the sky when he pulled into his driveway. It wasn’t until he’d exited the vehicle, a brand-new beefy, black Mustang that he’d bought to comfort himself after Clara left him with their new Acura, that he saw the silver RSX parked on the street. He stopped and checked the tags and knew it was hers. There was a light burning in the living-room window of his row house. He’d never asked her for her keys, hoping that she’d decide to use them one day to come home.

He opened the door and found her asleep on the couch, a light on, the television on CNN with the volume low. She’d taken a blanket from the upstairs linen closet and covered herself. She was curled in a tight ball, her hair fanned out on the pillow. She looked like a child when she slept, small and pale. He stood in the doorway looking at her, feeling his heart in his throat.

A couple of times he’d come home and saw a light in the window. Each time he felt his heart leap, only to be crushed when he realized he’d left the kitchen or the bedroom light on when he’d left for work.

But now she was here. She inhaled deeply, issued a soft sigh, as she shifted in sleep. He was afraid to move, afraid to dissolve the mirage. He did mental calculations. It was nearly four A.M.; if she was here, where was Sean? He didn’t work midnights anymore, so it’s not as if she could be out at this hour unnoticed. They must have fought after the phone call he and Grady had had earlier. She wouldn’t have had anywhere else to go. Both her best girlfriends were happily married with kids; she wouldn’t barge in on them, wouldn’t want to lose face again, after already being divorced once. She would never go to her parents, couldn’t bear the nagging and the judgment she’d surely receive from them. Her mom still sent Grady cards for Christmas and his birthday. “Be patient. She’ll come back to you,” she’d scrawled in the last one. He kept the card in the nightstand by his bed.

She opened her eyes and saw him, sat up slowly. He stepped into the living room from the tiny foyer, pushing the door closed behind him.

“Hey,” he said. He shifted off his coat, hung it over the banister, sat on the bottom landing of the staircase, respecting her distance. He caught his reflection in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. He looked tired, disheveled, thick in the middle from months of fast food almost every day.

“You told him I called you.” She rubbed her eyes, then lifted her hands high above her head in a deep stretch.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay. No, I’m not.”

The room was exactly as she’d decorated it. She’d picked out the plush cream carpet, the suede sectional, the flat-screen television and entertainment center. It was nice stuff, expensive. He was still paying for it. Even the blanket over her was a gift from their wedding. Thick chenille, her favorite. Feeling petty and mean, he wouldn’t let her take it; it was a gift from his sister on the occasion of their marriage. She had no right to it, he told her.

“So. What? You had a fight?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, gave an annoyed shake of her head. “What do you think, Sherlock?”

He shrugged. “You left him?”

She folded her slim arms across her middle, looked at something on the floor, then picked at some invisible scab on her elbow. She didn’t want to meet his eyes. He saw her shoulders start to shake. Then she buried her eyes in the palms of her hands. He stayed put. She didn’t like to be touched when she was crying. It made her angry.

“I really am sorry, Clara,” he said from his perch. “I just wanted to make him mad. I didn’t mean to fuck things up for you.”

“Oh,” she said into her hands, issuing a mirthless laugh, “I don’t need any help with that. I do just fine fucking things up on my own, Grady”

He wanted to feel her skin, bury his face in her hair. His hands wanted to roam her body, reclaim her in this room that was the home of their young marriage. He wanted to hear her breathing in the dark of their bedroom, look at the sliver of light under the bathroom door when she got up in the night. He wanted to listen to her blow-dry her hair in the morning while she sang out of tune to whatever was playing on the radio. He wanted to sit on the porch with her on Friday nights and sip wine, watch the neighborhood kids play stickball in the street like he used to a lifetime ago. Such little things he wanted, nothing fancy-not weekends in Paris and Veuve Clicquot. But there was so much distance to cross, such rough terrain between where they were now and that warm, comfortable place. He didn’t even know if she wanted those things, too. He realized he’d never asked her what she wanted, that even now he had no idea what might make her happy.

“He didn’t get mad about the phone call. That’s the worst part. He wasn’t even angry. It’d been you? You’d be screaming like a jealous little boy.”

He took the hit and didn’t argue. She was right. He’d have blown his stack had he been on the other end of that call.

“Then what?”

She ran her fingers through her hair. “He just asked me why I’d called. Was I missing you? Was I sure I was ready to move on?”

She blew out a breath, pushed the blanket aside and crossed her legs. She was wearing black leggings and one of his old Regis sweatshirts, soft and faded from years and years of washing. Her at-home uniform, he used to call it.

“He said he wanted to know we were both there, heart and soul, before we walked down the aisle. He didn’t want to marry Angie. She was pregnant and they were young. He thought he had to do that. Maybe he did. But he never loved her enough to ride the ups and downs of a real relationship. He didn’t want to make another mistake, this time marrying someone who didn’t love him enough.”

He was about to make a smart comment about what a deep guy his good friend Sean was, so wise in the ways of love, but he could tell by the look on her face that she was actually waiting for him to say something shitty. Suddenly he knew he had to man up now, tread carefully, or watch her walk back to Mr. Wonderful. He went for a solemn head nod. In the mirror, it looked good.

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him why I called you, what I called to tell you.”

“Why did you call?”

“I told him I was pregnant,” she said, simply, quietly, still not looking at him. “That we made love after the divorce hearing and that three weeks later I didn’t get my period.”

Grady felt as if something had washed over him, some cleansing rush of air. He felt as if it would carry him away if he let it. He stood up.

“I didn’t tell him that I think about you every day, wonder where you are, what you’re doing, if you’ve found someone new. I didn’t tell him that when he and I are”-she looked up at him, embarrassed-“together, I’m remembering how it used to be with you.”