Page 58 of When We Had Forever
“You mean you two actually spoke?Afterthat day in Seattle?”
“Not often. But yes.”
I flinch. Yesterday, I might have questioned his truthfulness. Today...
In my mind, magazine clippings and divorce papers spew from a never-ending folder of secrets. It seems I didn’t know my husband half as well as I believed. “What do you know about me, exactly?”
“That you’re a writer.” Grayson’s throaty rumble caresses my ear. “That you dreamed of writing creatively, but ended up doing articles for some medical magazine instead. Hmm, let’s see... You wanted to travel, but it caused problems with your family, and life never really gave you the chance. What else? You’re a runner, you love bright colors, you have this weird obsession with kettle corn. I have to admit, I don’t understand the popcorn thing at all, but hey. There’re worse habits.”
“Oh. Wow.” I sit back. It’s a superficial evaluation, yet my estranged brother-in-law seems to have taken my measure more precisely than my husband did. He tried, but as the years passed, the ways in which we differed mystified him.
“Am I being creepy?”
“A little,” I admit. “But also...I sound pathetic when you describe me that way. Like someone who never followed through in life. Someone who abandoned her dreams.”
His voice gentles. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Maybe not, but aside from disconcerting me, his assessment makes me view myself in a different light. One I don’t find at all flattering.
So I deflect. Because that’s the obvious next step. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to make small talk?”
“No,” he says. “I mean, if you really want, I could probably muddle through, but I don’t give a shit about the weather or whatever politician’s currently embarrassing himself on social media. I care about you. How you’re doing. Whether you’re all right.”
I swirl my finger into the spirals of the phone cord like I used to when I was a kid. “You don’t have to. I mean, I get that we’re technically related, but—”
“We’re not related,” he says, his voice hard.
I frown.Okaaaaay, then. “I just mean you don’t owe me anything. Whatever mess Michael left behind when he died isn’t yours to clean up. It’s mine. Granted, I’ve been doing a piss-poor job so far, but hopefully that’s about to change.”
“Oh yeah? Are you going to therapy?”
I lift my gaze to the bay windows and examine the layer of shadow at the edge of the yard. “No. I’m going into the woods.”
I have no idea why I actually say that, except that the passing squall of my anger has anchored me inside my own skin somehow, and honesty seems like a natural extension of that. Like I’m a storm cloud that’s spit out all its lightning and subsided to an easy rain.
It feels surprisingly good.
“Into the woods,” he repeats, clearly confused. “What does that mean?”
A half chuckle slips out. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
I hesitate. For one crazy, incandescent moment, I consider confessing. I could tell Grayson about Margo’s death and how I found solace in the woods at fifteen, if only because he absorbed my anger without batting an eyelash.
Except he’d bat one of those long, golden lashes at this. “Maybe some other time.”
“Like when?”
“I don’t know. You’d probably have to catch me in the right mood. Or very drunk.”
“All right. Easy enough. I’ll just call you a lot, until I get lucky.”
I open my mouth, but say nothing. This is...not what I expected. At all. “You don’t have to. Really. I’m okay.” My voice quavers on the last two words.
Thankfully, Grayson doesn’t know me well enough to catch it. “I know I don’t have to,” he says. “Iwantto.”
This time, there’s a hint of...supplication in his tone. Like he’s searching for something and for some reason has decided I’m where he can find it. “Look,” I say. “No matter what Michael’s told you, you don’t know me.”
