Chapter 4: The Weight of Six Weeks
The drive home was twenty minutes.
Neither of us filled it.
Robert kept both hands on the wheel.
I watched the streetlights pass.
When we pulled into the driveway, he turned the engine off but didn't move to get out.
"I keep thinking about the morning you told me to make my own dinner," he said.
"I was annoyed.
I actually said something to Mark about it.
I said, 'Your mother's in a mood.' "
I turned to look at him.
"I didn't know," he said.
"That's the part I can't get past.
You were carrying that, and I was annoyed about dinner."
"You couldn't have known."
"Because you didn't tell me." He finally looked at me.
"Claire, I'm your husband.
Whatever that call said — good news, bad news, the worst news possible — I was supposed to be the first person you called.
Not the last."
"I know that."
"Do you?
Because I'm not sure you do.
I'm not sure you've ever believed that."
I opened my mouth.
He kept going.
"How many times have you handled something alone because you didn't want to burden me?
How many times have you been struggling and I only found out months later, or never?"
The porch light was on.
Through the front window I could see the living room lamp Mark must have left burning.
"That's not fair," I said quietly.
"Which part?"
"I'm not trying to exclude you.
I just — I handle things.
That's what I do.
I've always handled things."
"I know you have." His voice softened for the first time.
"You've been handling things since before I met you.
But Claire — I'm not one of the things you're supposed to handle alone.
I'm the person who's supposed to help you carry it."
My throat tightened.
"I didn't know how to be the one who needed help," I said.
"I've been the one who gives it for so long.
I didn't know what it looked like from the other side."
He was quiet.
"When the hospital called that first time," I said, "the first thing I felt — before the fear, before anything — was this strange, terrible calm.
Like some part of me had been waiting for a reason to stop.
To just stop doing everything and finally ask what I actually wanted."
"And what do you want?"
Nobody had asked me that in years.
Maybe longer.
"I want to paint," I said.
"I want to go to Italy.
I want to have dinner with you and not be thinking about the laundry or the school run or what Mark needs tomorrow." I paused.
"I want to feel like a person.
Not just a function."
Robert was looking at me with an expression I hadn't seen in a long time.
Not pity.
Something older than that.
"You've always been a person," he said.
"I just didn't see how much we'd buried her."
We sat in the dark driveway for another few minutes.
Neither of us moved to go inside.
Then Robert said: "I need to tell you something too."
Something in his tone made me go still.
"What?"
He looked straight ahead at the garage door.
"I called your mother today.
Before dinner.
I wanted to ask her advice about Italy — whether she thought you'd really enjoy it or whether you'd spend the whole trip worrying about the kids."
"Okay."
"She said something strange.
She said, 'Robert, just make sure Claire's actually all right.
She sounded off the last time I spoke to her.' " He paused.
"I told her you were fine.
That you'd just been tired."
May you like
He turned to look at me.
"She said, 'That's what she always says.' "
