Chapter 15
Letting Go
It took her eight days.
She would think, later, that it was both too long and not nearly long enough. She did not decide anything on the first. She spent it, as she had spent most of her adult life, being useful. She cleaned the apartment. She did the grocery shopping. She went to her mother's, and ironed, and listened to a long, loud, rambling, happy account of Eli's new job at a warehouse, which had a pension plan and a manager who called everyone champ. She sat on the back step with her brother, in the dusk, with a bottle of soda each, and he said, out of nowhere, with his eyes on the yard, "I'm sorry. For what I said. About it being your job."
"It's okay."
"It isn't. I've been thinking." He turned the bottle round. "I'd hate it, if I were you. Nobody asked you. You just, you did it, and everybody let you."
"I let me."
"Yeah." He grinned crookedly. "That's the thing about you, Sar. You're so good at it that nobody notices it's work."
She did not say anything.
She sat there in the blue evening with the soda going flat in her hand, and a pale new moon over the garage. She thought, That's the second person. It was a strange idea. For a long time she had thought that she was a person whom nobody could see through. And now, in the space of three weeks, a man in a coffee shop, and a boy on a step, and a woman in a staff room with a mug had each looked at her, kindly, and said what was there.
Maybe I'm not hiding as well as I thought.
Maybe I never was.
She told Tessa on the Wednesday.
She had not planned to. She had come into work with a plan to be cheerful, and had been cheerful for four hours, and at noon, when she went into the staff room for a sandwich, she found that her friend was already there, sitting alone at the table with a plastic container of rice, reading a magazine. Tessa looked up. She had a long, quiet look. She closed the magazine.
"Sit down," said Tessa.
"I'm fine."
"I know. Sit."
She sat.
It came out slowly. She did not cry. She was rather surprised by that. She sat at the little laminated table with her hands folded in front of her and said it in a plain, even, careful voice, like a person giving evidence. She said that Mark had sent a text from her phone. She said what it was. She said that he had read the rest. She said that he had cried, and apologized, and that she had walked home. She said she had made a list.
"Can I see?"
"It's at home."
"Tell me what's on it."
She did. It was not long. She listed it off, flatly, on her fingers, a sweater, a scarf, a night out. Tessa listened to all of it, with her large dark eyes fixed on her face, and when she had finished she said nothing for a minute. She picked up her fork. She put it down.
"I'm going to say something," she said. "And you can tell me to shut up."
"Okay."
"I've known you for five years."
"I know."
"I've been waiting for about two and a half of them for you to tell me."
Sarah looked at her.
"I didn't say anything," said Tessa. "I wanted to. God, I wanted to. I'd get right up to it. And then I'd see you'd come in on a Monday morning with this look, like a person who's had a very polite telling-off. And I'd think, she'll say. I'd think, if I push, she'll go quiet. She'll defend him. She'll stop telling me anything at all."
"I would have."
"I know you would. So I waited." She reached across the table and took Sarah's hand. Her own was warm and square and sticky with rice. "I'm so sorry I waited. I'm sorry it took a, I should've been there with a, I don't know. A crowbar."
"You were."
"I wasn't."
"You were always, you put up with me. You made me laugh. You never made me feel stupid." She was crying a little. "You're the reason I had a place to go."
"I'd like to have been more."
"You were enough," said Sarah.
They sat there for a while with their hands joined across the table, like children, in the buzzing bright light of the staff room, under a corkboard covered in crayon suns. At last Tessa wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and gave a fierce, damp laugh and said, "Ben's going to lose it. He's been wanting to name a sauce after Mark for a year. It's going to be called Red Flag."
"You can't."
"I can. It's going to be really hot. It's going to have a warning label."
Sarah laughed. She laughed so hard that she had to put her head down on her arm. It was a long, shaky, gulping laugh, and under it she felt a pressure lift from her chest that she had not known was there. She did not know whether she had decided anything. She knew only that she was sitting in a room with a person who loved her, and that it was possible, after all, to say it aloud.
It was the thing about the therapist that settled it.
She did not see it coming. It was Friday. She had been home an hour, in the kitchen, in a sweater, with the radio on low. She was making a pot of rice, and her phone buzzed on the counter, and it was Mark. It was a long message. It was the longest he had ever sent.
Sarah. I want to tell you what I've learned. I've had two sessions. I think it's good. Dr. Ellis says I have a pattern, and that I do it when I'm afraid, and that it's called controlling behavior, and that I have to be honest about it, and not call it love. I didn't like hearing that. But I think she's right. I think I've been doing it since the beginning. She said I should apologize properly and not ask you for anything in return. So I'm going to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the phone. I'm sorry for the sweater, and Tessa, and the dress. I'm sorry I made you feel like you had to prove it. I'm not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to know that I see it now.
She read it standing at the stove.
She read it twice, with the spoon in her hand. It was so good. It was well-written, and honest, and humble, and it said everything that she had been waiting three years to hear. She felt her throat tighten. She felt it, absurdly, begin to give. She thought: He sees it. She thought: He's changing. It's what I wanted.
She read the sentence again.
She said I should apologize properly.
She stood there. The rice began to boil. A little cloud of steam rose past her face, and the lid rattled, and she did not move. It was only a sentence. It was an honest one. It was a thing that a man had written, who was trying, in the plain clear words of a person who had been told what to do.
She said.
She turned off the stove.
She sat down at the table. She laid the phone in front of her, and looked at the long gray paragraph on the screen. She did not know why she was cold. It was a lovely message. It was the message of a better man. And a small plain thought, entirely without anger, came and sat down in her mind, like a bird on a rail.
He's sorry because he was told.
He isn't sorry because he saw.
It was a very small difference. She turned it over. She could not make it any larger. But she could not make it go away, either, and she sat there for a long time, in the clean yellow kitchen, thinking about a plain white mug, and a message from a man who had said I don't think you wrote it.
Nobody had told him. He had just known.
That's the difference, she thought.
It isn't a better apology. It's not that.
It's that I'd never have to wait for one.
She asked him to meet her on Sunday.
She did it by text, in four words. She did it in the morning, at the table, with her coffee going cold and her heart thumping in her ears. Can we talk? Park? He answered at once. Yes. Of course. Where? She said the bandstand. It was a place in the Elm Street park, a small white gazebo by a pond, where he had once, on a bright afternoon in June two years ago, kissed her under a shower of petals from a cherry tree that was not in season.
She had chosen it on purpose.
She did not know why. It seemed the right place. It seemed fair. She would not do it in her flat, where he had cooked, or in his, where she had slept. She wanted something neutral and old and kind, with a bench, and a duck.
She got there at two. It was a gray, mild day with a soft wet smell of earth. The cherry trees along the path were just coming out. A mother was feeding a toddler crackers on a blanket, and a man was reading a newspaper under a tree. She sat on the step of the gazebo with her hands between her knees. She had the ring in her pocket. She had taken it off in the elevator, in her building, at ten to two, and put it there, and felt the whole of her left hand go light, like a thing that has been under water.
He came across the grass in a dark blue sweater.
He had lost weight. That was the first thing she saw. His face was thinner, and paler, and the shadows under his eyes were the color of plums. He had not shaved. He walked slowly, with his hands in his pockets, and a small, uncertain, hopeful, awful smile on his mouth, and when he reached the steps he stopped, a long way off, and said, "Hi."
"Hi."
"You look nice."
"Thank you."
"Can I sit?"
"Yes."
He sat on the step below her. He did it carefully, as if the wood might not hold, and put his hands between his knees. He looked at the pond. A pair of ducks went by. He did not say anything. He sat and waited, with his shoulders up, and she saw him breathing, in and out, and she thought, he's counting.
He's counting to four.
She put her hand on her knee.
"I got your message," she said. "On Friday."
"Yes."
"It was a good one."
"I meant it."
"I know you did." Her voice was steadier than she had hoped. "I wanted to say that I believe you. I think you are, I think you're really trying. I think it's a very good thing, that you went. I'm proud of you."
"Thank you."
"I'm not going to marry you."
She had not meant to say it like that. It was out before she could soften it. It was one flat clean sentence, in the gray afternoon, and it lay on the air between them like a coin dropped on stone. She saw it reach him. She saw his shoulders move. She saw his hands tighten, one on the other, until the knuckles went white.
He did not say anything for a very long time.
"Okay," said Mark.
"I'm sorry."
"No. It's okay. I think I knew." He kept his eyes on the pond. "I think I've known since the library. I think I knew when you didn't come to the, when you didn't ask about the wedding photographer. You always ask about things. And you didn't. You didn't ask me one single thing for a month." He drew an unsteady breath. "I thought, if I'm very good. If I do it all right. If I see the right doctor, and say the right words. I thought it'd, it would be like you were a thing that came back, if you were kind enough."
"It's not that."
"It's not?"
"It's not a, it isn't about how good you are." She was shaking. She laced her fingers. "I think you'll be, you'll be a much better man. I think in a year, in two, I think you'll, some woman will be very lucky. You'll be gentle. You'll let her go to the thing with her friends." She stopped. "But it can't be me. I don't think I can be the person you're getting better for."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to be the reason."
"I'd be happy to be your reason."
"No. I mean, I'd be yours." She looked at him. "I'd be the thing you're doing it all for. And if I leave, you stop. And if I stay, I have to keep, I have to be the one who's watching. To see if you've done it right. And I don't want, I've been doing that for three years. I want to be the one who isn't being watched."
"I wouldn't watch."
"You would. You'd try not to. And you'd watch."
He put his face in his hands.
He cried for a long time. It was a quiet kind of crying, with no sound, and his shoulders shook with it. She sat on the step above him and did not touch him. It was terribly hard. She had to sit on her own hands. Everything in her wanted to put an arm round him, to say there, to take it back. She sat there looking at the back of his bent head, and the soft brown hair, and the line of his neck, and felt the thing she had been warned about. It rose in her like a tide. It was love, of a kind. It was real. It was nine years old, and standing in a kitchen, and had been standing there ever since.
Don't, she told herself. Not that. That's not it.
You can love someone and not be able to stay.
"Is it him?" said Mark.
She had been waiting for it.
"No," she said.
"You're lying."
"I'm not. It's not, it isn't about him." She took a breath. "I think there's something that I feel for him. I won't lie to you. I think you knew that. I think you're right, about that. But I'm not leaving you because of a man. I haven't even, I told him to leave me alone. I haven't spoken to him in a week. I'm doing this because of me."
"That's what they all say."
"I know how it sounds."
"You're, he's talked you into it. He's been, in your ear, for months."
"He hasn't said a word."
"He's a snake."
"He's not."
"He's a, he's the, you don't know. You think he's sweet because he's quiet. That's how they sit there with a dog and a, they tell you they don't want anything. They're patient. And you think, oh, he's so different. And then." He lifted his face. It was blotched and furious and ravaged. "And then it's you who's, it's me who's the one on the step. It's me who's sitting here. And he's laughing. He's got everything. He got it for free."
"Mark."
"I did it all. I did all the work. I sat there. I held you up. I took you, for three years, I made you, I built you, Sarah. You were nothing. You were this scared little girl in a blue scarf."
She went very still.
He heard it. She saw him hear it. His mouth was open, and the next word died on it. The anger went out of his face like water down a drain. He stared at her, in the gray light, and his lips moved, and no sound came.
"Oh, God," said Mark.
She did not say anything.
"I didn't, I don't. I didn't mean that."
"I know."
"That's not what, that's not how I."
"I know."
"It's just that I, it came out. I'm so tired. I haven't slept. I'm so, that's not me." He pressed his fists against his eyes. "That's my father. It's my father's voice. I heard it. I heard it come out of my mouth."
"It's okay."
"It's not."
"It's not okay," said Sarah. "But I'm not afraid. I want you to know that. I'm not afraid of you. Not now. I think that's what I wanted to find out."
He lowered his hands.
He looked at her. He looked at her for a long time. He seemed to see, for the first time, something that he had been standing next to for three years. He drew in a long breath, as though he were taking in a very large and cold amount of air.
"You're different," he said, slowly.
"Am I?"
"You're, I don't know. You're not looking at my face."
"What?"
"You always look at my face. Before you say anything. You look, to see what I'll do. You do it every time." He swallowed. "You haven't done it once this afternoon."
She had not known.
She put her hand to her cheek, in a vague way. It was cool. She looked at the pond, and the ducks, and a leaf that was turning slowly on the water.
"No," she said. "I suppose I haven't."
She gave him the ring on the path.
They walked back together, as far as the gate. It was nearly four. A thin sun had come out, and the grass was bright. He walked with his head down. At the gate he stopped, and she stopped, and she took the ring out of her pocket and held it out on her palm.
He did not take it.
"Keep it," said Mark.
"I can't."
"It's yours. I bought it for you."
"It's, it was for a thing that isn't happening."
"Then sell it. Give it to your mother. Throw it in the river." He tried to smile. It went wrong. "I don't want it back. I couldn't look at it."
"Mark."
"Please."
She closed her hand on it.
They stood there, at the gate, near. He was looking at her face, intently, as one looks at a house from the road. His eyes were wet. He did not touch her. He had put his hands back in his pockets, and she saw how hard he was holding them there.
"Can I ask you one thing?" he said.
"Yes."
"Who's going to look after you?"
It was so simple. It was so plainly meant. It went into her like a thin blade, because there was nothing in it that was not love. He was not trying to keep her. He was only asking, in the voice of a man who had done a thing for three years and did not know how to stop, who was going to make sure that she had eaten, and locked the door, and got home.
She felt it, a great hot swell, in her chest.
"I will," said Sarah.
"Will you?"
"I think I can."
"You're not very good at it."
"I know." She smiled. It shook. "I'm going to get better."
He laughed. It was a cracked, wet, appalled little sound, and he put the back of his wrist to his mouth. "God," he said. "God. You're really going."
"Yes."
"I wasn't always bad, was I?"
"No," said Sarah. "You weren't."
"I wasn't, was I. I was good, a lot of the time. I was good on the, in the beginning. I sat with you."
"You did."
"I did that."
"You did," she said. "You were the best person in the world that week. I'll never forget it. I want you to know that. Whatever else. I'll remember the, I'll always remember who came."
He nodded.
He stood there nodding, with his mouth working, and tears running down his face, and he did not seem to know that he was doing it. And then, very quietly, in a voice that was not the one he used for clients, nor the one he used for her, but a smaller, plainer, older one, he said, "Promise me you'll remember the good parts."
"I promise."
"All of them."
"All of them."
"Okay." He wiped his face. "Okay. I'm going to go now. I'm going to walk to the car, and I'm not going to look back. And you're going to stand here, and not follow."
"I won't."
"Good."
He turned.
He went along the path, under the cherry trees, with his hands in his pockets, a tall, thin, fair man in a dark blue sweater. He walked very straight. He did not turn his head. She watched him go all the way to the end of the lane, and across the road, and in among the parked cars, and she saw his shoulders drop, once, for a moment, as he reached the door of the gray Audi, and then lift. Then he was gone.
She stood where she was.
The wind moved in the cherry trees. A shower of white petals came down, light as paper, on her shoulders and her hair, and on the gravel, and on the hand that was still closed round a ring. She did not brush them off. She stood still for a long time, in the pale thin sun, in an empty park.
It's done, she thought.
She felt nothing for a moment. Then it came.
It was not grief. It was not even relief. It was a kind of awful lightness, as if she had put down a very heavy bag and found that her arms did not know how to stay down. She sat on a bench. She put her head between her knees. She was shaking so hard that her teeth rattled. She sat bent over in the park with the petals falling on her neck and breathed like a swimmer, in, out, in, and out, in four, out four, and counted.
She did it eleven times.
Tessa found her on the stairs of her building at nine.
She had called. She had texted. She had driven round for an hour, and at last had parked the car, and come up, and found Sarah on the third step from the top in the dark with her coat on and her knees drawn up, and a cold cup of tea beside her, and a small brown paper bag.
"Hi, hon," said Tessa.
"Hi."
"I got your text."
"I didn't send a text."
"You did. At six. It said it's done." She sat down on the step, with a grunt. She put her big arm round Sarah's shoulders, and pulled her in, and Sarah went, like a stone going into a river. "I came as fast as I could. Ben's making a casserole. It's got, I think it's got seven cheeses."
"I'm okay."
"I know."
"I'm just sitting."
"That's allowed."
"I don't know what I'm doing."
"You're sitting on a step," said Tessa. "It's an excellent thing to do."
They sat there for a long time. The dry cleaner's sign buzzed. A bus went by in the street, and shook the whole house. On the landing, in the dark, Tessa rocked her gently, from side to side, as one rocks a very small child, and said nothing, and Sarah cried into the shoulder of her coat until it was wet right through.
At ten, her phone buzzed.
She took it out. She looked at the screen, and her breath caught.
It was only a message. It was short. There was no how are you, and no what happened. It had been sent at 9:58, in lowercase, without a comma, by a man who must have typed it, and deleted it, and typed it, and sat with his thumb above the glass for a very long time.
i'm around. no pressure at all. pickles says hi.
She held it.
She did not answer. She could not. She put the phone against her chest, and held it there, with her eyes shut, feeling it warm her through her coat, and thought, in a very small voice, Not yet.
Not yet. I have to do this by myself first.
Then I'll tell you.
"Who's that?" said Tessa, gently.
"Nobody."
"Okay."
"It's a friend."
"I know," said Tessa. She kissed the top of her head. "I know, sweetheart. Come on. Let's go and eat some cheese."