Nick smiled to himself in the dark. “Tomorrow, okay Em? This was an exhausting trip, and the boys wore me out tonight. Are your folks taking them tomorrow?”
“Yes—I said I’d drive them over around 11.”
“Okay then. Sleep well.” He offered her no kiss, no hug. Now that he was home again, the anger that had died down a bit during his busy week at work was roaring through him. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and as he lay there he was aware of Emily tossing and turning as well.
**********************
Saturday breakfast was subdued, though you couldn’t have told it by Charlie and Ben, who were jumping around with extra energy. Dad was back, and they were going to Gramma and Grampa’s—for an overnight visit! “Can we take our baseball gloves? And our new hats? Will Grampa play baseball with us?” Etc., etc.
Nick quietly enjoyed Emily’s mournful looks, and when she was ready to drive off with the boys he just said, “we’ll talk when you get back.”
But the house was empty when Emily returned, and she had a miserable hour of sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at the driveway and imagining the worst, before Nick returned. He walked in with an armload of U-Haul boxes and she burst into tears.
Nick handed her a napkin. “C’mon, Em, it’s all right. Let’s just talk this through like two adults.”
But he had to wait nearly five minutes until her sobbing subsided, and another five while she washed her face and repaired her make-up. When she came back she looked better—still devastated, but in Nick’s eyes oddly beautiful. He really was crazy about her, the stupid bitch, he thought.
She got them cups of coffee and sat back down at the table. “Can I talk first, Nick?”
He nodded.
She leaned forward and looked at him imploringly. “I don’t want a divorce, I don’t want a separation. I want you, and I want our marriage back.
“I love you and I know you love me, Nick. And you adore the boys. We should be together. And I’ll do anything I can to make our marriage better, anything. Just tell me where to start.”
He gazed at her, keeping his face neutral. “The excitement’s gone, Em. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too. All the routine, the dishes and the boys and the bills?
“Can you tell me honestly that you haven’t noticed? That you haven’t been tempted to find something else, something a little more exciting, something or someone that would put a little spark back in your life?”
The moment of truth. He wondered if she’d burst into tears again, or run out of the room, or even look straight into his face and lie to him.
Instead she said, “yes, I’ve felt it, Nick. And I’ve been an absolute idiot, and I’m afraid when you hear about it you’ll just walk out the door and I’ll never see you again.”
She was trembling, and squeezing the fingers of her left hand with her right so hard he was afraid she’d break them. But she didn’t stop looking at him.
With a straight face he said, “what are you talking about?”
Stiffly she got up, went to the cabinet above the refrigerator and pulled out three pieces of paper.