5: 5
5
Rita didn't get home until the next morning.
She'd expected me to be sitting in the living room, waiting for her, the way I always did.
Maybe with a dark face, demanding to know why she'd lied to me. Maybe insisting that Barret and his son never show themselves again.
But she figured a few words of explanation, one more promise that she'd keep Barret and the boy out of my sight, and in the end I'd stay. I always did.
After all, in five years I'd gotten used to leaning on her arm just to go downstairs and buy groceries.
Where else could I go?
But when the door opened, the apartment was too quiet.
The running shoes I always wore were gone from the entryway.
On the coffee table sat the signed divorce papers, my wedding ring pressed against the last page.
Rita stared at it for a few seconds, and her face went dark.
"Max, are you done with this?"
No one answered.
She searched every room, then stopped in front of the closet.
Most of my clothes were still there.
She seemed to breathe again, and pulled out her phone to message me.
*You're leaving all your clothes behind?*
*Come home and we'll talk. I can pretend yesterday never happened.*
Beside each message there was only a red exclamation mark.
Her hand finally went stiff.
She yanked open the nightstand drawer and found my passport, my documents, and the painkillers I took every day all gone.
Only one blister pack of expired pills was left.
The back of the box was covered edge to edge with dates.
Every date was a day she'd promised to take me to a follow-up appointment, then canceled at the last minute.
Once she'd said it was a meeting at work.
She was actually abroad, celebrating Elmer's first birthday.
Another time she'd said her father was in the hospital.
In the photo, she was holding Elmer, building a snowman on a ski slope.
She'd never looked closely at those dates before.
Because every time she came back, I would smile and tell her the doctor said I was healing well.
And she'd believed it.
Her phone suddenly rang.
Not me.
My lawyer.
"Ms. Henson, Mr. James has authorized me to handle the divorce entirely on his behalf."
"He won't meet with you, and he doesn't need you to care for him."
Rita shot back without thinking: "He can't manage on his own with that leg."
The lawyer was quiet for a moment.
"Ms. Henson, yesterday he boarded the flight alone, and he arrived alone."
"His leg was injured. That doesn't mean he can't live his life."
After the call ended, Rita stood in the bedroom for a long time.
Elmer's laughter came from outside the door soon enough.
Barret walked in with the child and their parents, movers hauling luggage behind them.
The James mother said with a smile, "Max is just in a temper. Let Barret and Elmer stay here for now."
"When he comes back and sees the whole family getting along, he'll come around."
Barret carried Elmer toward the nursery.
"Elmer's been wanting to see the room his mommy set up for him."
His hand had just touched the handle when Rita slammed her own down on the door.
That room still held the crib I'd picked out myself.
Faded stars were stuck on the wall.
In five years, she'd never once dared to go in.
Barret froze.
"My brother's gone anyway. It's a waste to leave the room empty."
He said it as easily as Rita had said, the day before, that a dead child couldn't keep a name forever.
For the first time, Rita heard exactly how cruel that line was.
Slowly she let go of the door, but she didn't step aside.
"Get out."
Barret went pale.
"Rita?"
"Take your luggage and get out. All of you."
Elmer burst into frightened tears.
Before, the moment the child cried, Rita would give in at once.
This time, through the half-open door, she saw the dust settled thick over the crib.
And she remembered, all at once, how after our son was gone I'd asked her whether we could lock this room.
She'd said yes.
She'd held my hand and promised that as long as I was alive, we'd have children again.
Later, I could never be a father again.
And she gave that promise, that name, and the place of a mother to another child.
