Lost Along the Way (7 page)

I tried to gauge the depth of my feelings. To sort one emotion from another. I loved him, yes. But time had taken its toll. What I felt most of all was grief. A deep sense of loss more piercing than what I’d felt when my parents had died.

We were over. There was nothing left but a memory of what had once been great. Chasing it now did me no more good than grabbing at shadows. It was time for me to face it.

It was time for both of us to face it.

I rose on Friday morning with a heavy heart, knowing what I needed to do. Chase would leave for the restaurant a bit before four, which meant I had to duck out of work early in order to catch him. My stomach roiled the whole way home.

He was getting dressed for his shift at the restaurant when I walked in, his hair wet from the shower. “Daniel!” He sounded more shocked than seemed justified, his eyes wide with alarm, but maybe it was my imagination. “What are you doing home?”

“We need to talk.”

His back was to me. He faced the mirror, buttoning his work shirt. His reflection blinked at me, his expression wary and, perhaps, downright scared. “Now?”

“Yes, now.”

He sighed and pulled a comb through his hair. “I really don’t have time.”

“Then make time.”

He tossed the comb down and pushed past me into the hallway, stalking toward the living room without looking back. “I have to go to work. This is exactly my fourth day. I can’t afford to be late.”

“Chase—”

“We’ll talk later.”

“When?”

“When I get home.”

“I’ll be gone.”

“Oh. Of course,” he huffed as he searched for something on the coffee table, riffling through junk mail and empty coffee cups. “You’ll be in Laramie.”

Yes, and maybe going was a mistake. Maybe I should stay home this weekend. But what good would it do? “You could come with me.”

“Have you lost your mind? I have to work.”

“I don’t care.”

He stopped and turned to glare at me. “Excuse me?”

“Just quit. You can always find another job.”

“I only started four days ago!”

“Please, Chase. For me.”

He sighed and went back to searching the coffee table. This time he found what he was searching for. He straightened and pinned the little plastic name badge to his chest. “We’ll talk when you get home on Sunday.”

He was halfway out the door when I said the words I’d been playing over and over in my head all day.

“I think we should break up.”

He turned to stare at me, frozen, his eyes wide with shock. “Are you serious?”

I hesitated. Was I? “Maybe.”

He took a step backward, blinking. I was sure he was fighting tears. He looked so wounded. So completely lost. “Is that really what you want? To leave me?”

“I don’t know. But this?” I gestured at the horribly empty space between us. “This is killing me.” My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard, determined not to cry. Not now. I had to stay strong. “I don’t know how you can stand it. I don’t know how you can pretend like nothing’s wrong.”

He stepped back inside, letting the screen door slam shut. “Christ, Daniel.” He glanced at his watch and swore. “You spring this on me now, right when I have to leave?”

“When else would I see you?”

“Perfect. Fifteen years together and you’re going to dump me and run off to Laramie because we hit a bad stretch?”

“A ‘bad stretch’?” I said, incredulous. “Is that really all you think it is?”

“We talked about it Sunday night. We just need—”

“Listen to me, Chase: we’re falling apart! We haven’t been a couple in ages. We never talk anymore. We never make love. We never even laugh together! I feel like we’re strangers—”

“It’s a rough patch. It’ll—”

“
It’s more than that
,” I shouted, “and it won’t just ‘get better’!”

We seldom fought, and when we did, I rarely yelled, but I was so hurt. So tired of the lies and the pretending. He straightened his shoulders, and I knew I’d triggered his defenses. I knew he was about to attack.

“So maybe things are shit right now. Maybe you’re right.” He pointed a finger my way. “But you’re part of this. You’re the one who leaves every weekend.”

“We agreed it was the best way to deal with my parents’ house.”

“Or maybe you decided it was the easiest way to run away.”

“I’ve begged you more than once to go with me.”

“
I have to work!
” Now he was yelling too.

“Not every time! That’s nothing but a lousy excuse and you know it.”

“I see. You think this is all my fault?”

“I never said that.”

“Well good, because it’s bullshit, Daniel! You think you’re the only one who’s unhappy sometimes? You think you’re the only one who lies awake wondering what the fuck is going on? Wondering what the hell happened to the man you loved?”

His words stung, and I threw them back at him, wanting to hurt him as much as he was hurting me. “All the more reason we should end it!”

He backed up as if I’d struck him, holding his hands up in surrender. “This is ridiculous, Daniel. I don’t have time for this. We’ll talk about it on Sunday.”

T
HE
DRIVE
to Laramie felt bleaker than ever. June had been hot, with too little rain. Now, this late in the day, the heat had abated, but the air still felt charged and desperate. Landon’s metal birds hung motionless and strangely forlorn in the still evening air. My parents’ house felt like a tomb, and I sank onto the couch with my head in my hands, trying to make sense of my feelings. My confrontation with Chase had sapped my strength. I hadn’t quite managed to end things, but I felt sure we were only delaying the inevitable.

Maybe things would get better, like he said. Maybe we’d make up when I returned home on Sunday. But even if we did, would anything truly change? Yes, I’d finish clearing out my parents’ house eventually, allowing me more time at home, but the thought didn’t fill me with joy as it should have, partly because I knew in my heart it wouldn’t solve anything. Thinking back, I could see our decline had started well before the trips to Laramie. Admittedly, my weekends away weren’t helping matters, but they weren’t the cause of it either.

And was I actually anticipating a time when I wouldn’t have my parents’ house and its memories around me? That was what I’d wanted when I’d begun this journey, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. I had a feeling I’d miss it all when it was over.

So, what?
the contrarian in my head argued.
Planning to live in two cities forever?

“Of course not,” I said aloud. It was only that my house in Westminster no longer felt like a haven. It offered no comfort.

I stared blankly out the window at the wind sculpture. Maybe I could pay to have it hauled to Denver when this was all over. Maybe Landon would even drive it down there for me. But the thought of his birds in Denver—and the thought of him in my Westminster home—both made me uneasy for reasons I couldn’t explain.

I glanced around. A few boxes waited by the couch for me, proof that Landon had been “triaging” while I was gone.

It was time to quit moping and get to work.

Landon’s arrival a half hour later brightened my mood considerably. He’d trimmed his hair, although it was still a bit of a mess. He brought with him the smell of freshly cut grass and metal and a strange hint of cinnamon. It was hard to be negative when he was around. Still, I couldn’t quite muster my usual cheerfulness, either.

“You seem out of sorts this week,” he said as I worked my way through a box of owners’ manuals for every appliance my parents had ever owned.

“Do I?” I sounded listless, even to myself.

“Yeah.” He’d discovered a box of salt and pepper shakers and was scrubbing them in the sink, one pair at a time. He was also wearing the green apron again. “Everything all right at home?”

The manly part of me wanted to lie. To crack my knuckles and declare it must be Miller time, but I couldn’t quite muster the energy. “Yes.” I hesitated. “No.” He raised his eyebrows at me, and I sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Oh.” He stared down into the soapy water, scrubbing determinedly at a bright red apple-shaped shaker. I knew he was pondering his words, probably trying to balance support with respect. It took him several seconds to speak again. “Is it work?”

“No. Not really.”

“Money trouble?”

“No.”

A second of silence. “Is it Chase?”

I sighed and tossed the booklet for an ancient hand mixer into the trash. “Yes.”

“Oh.”

His tone was unreadable, his expression determinedly blank. He didn’t seem inclined to speak again. Or to make eye contact. He held the little fake apple up, turning it over in his soapy hands, idly searching for more dirt. He reminded me of a very hairy Snow White.

“I broke up with him.”

The apple slipped from his fingers. He caught it before it hit the sink, looking embarrassed. “You did?”

“Well, I tried to.”

He set the apple aside to dry, still not meeting my gaze. “It didn’t work?”

“Not really.”

“So, you’re still together?”

His tone was so careful. He picked up the apple’s mate—this one was green—and began wiping it slowly with his sponge. Soap suds clung to the dark hair on his forearms.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I guess. For now.”

A blush began to creep up his cheeks, and I quickly turned away.

The silence seemed to stretch on forever. I was about to suggest we quit for the night when he spoke again. “I won’t be around as much next weekend.”

“Oh.” Strange how much disappointment those words stirred in me. “Are you going somewhere?”

“I’ll be downtown, at Jubilee Days. I signed up as a vendor.”

I’d forgotten about Jubilee Days, Laramie’s mixed celebration of the Fourth of July and Wyoming’s statehood on the tenth. The celebration lasted more than a week and included live music, a rodeo, a carnival, and of course, fireworks.

“I used to count the days until the carnival,” I said, suddenly nostalgic.

“They’ve added a brewfest too. Although I’d recommend doing that on a separate day. Beer samples and the Tilt-a-Whirl just don’t mix.”

I laughed. “Not well, at any rate.” It’d been years since I’d attended Jubilee Days. “You said you’re going as a vendor? Selling your sculptures?”

“And hopefully some photos. Maybe you could stop by next weekend? Take a break from all this?” He gestured with a wet, sudsy hand at the living room. “We could ride some rides after I close my booth?”

It was said so hesitantly. As if the suggestion might be unwelcome.

But it wasn’t.

“I’d love to.”

He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he failed. I knew he was pleased.

A
T
SEVEN
o’clock the next morning, I strapped on my running shoes and headed south to LaPrele Park, with Spring Creek in its center. The tiny creek was the entire reason Laramie had been built in this exact spot in the middle of nowhere, and as a kid, I’d played with my friends in the wild grasses on its banks. The area had been tamed sometime in the last fifteen years, and although I was a bit sad to see the hip-high weeds of my childhood gone, I couldn’t deny this was better. A jogging path and Frisbee golf course lined the creek, and the small pond was now stocked with trout, but only for fishers under the age of thirteen. The park was mostly deserted this early in the morning. A few other lone joggers ambled past, but I was largely left alone with my thoughts.

It wasn’t much of a blessing. How many times could I hash over my argument with Chase or my growing reluctance to sell my parents’ house? My return to Westminster already felt too close. Too soon. Too brutal. Denver was big and loud and busy. So much traffic and so little open space. After so many years away, it surprised me that Laramie felt more like home than Colorado, but it did.

You could move here.

The thought came unbidden, so out of the blue, I actually stopped running.

Technically, the house was mine. There was nothing to stop me from living in it.

Nothing but a house in Westminster. And a job.

And a husband.

Is that really going to last?
the voice in my head asked.
Maybe a fresh start is exactly what you need.

I ignored it and continued jogging, doing my best to stop my traitorous brain from presenting images I wasn’t ready to face. I concentrated instead on the sky. Altocumulus standing lenticular clouds spotted the sky. Their telltale flying saucer shape indicated higher winds in the upper atmosphere. I hoped they’d give way to thundershowers later in the day, but the radar hadn’t looked promising.

I was halfway around the lake when I ran into Landon coming the other way. We both stopped, hands on our hips, trying not to breathe too hard from the exertion. “I didn’t know you ran,” I said as he struggled to regulate his breathing.

“Off and on,” he panted, patting his stomach. “Last year’s shorts are significantly tighter than they used to be.”

I laughed. “I know how that goes.”

He nodded, still breathing hard, and leaned down and put his hands on his knees. “Damn, I’m getting old.”

I didn’t bother to point out he was still several years younger than me. “You on your way back?”

“Yes, thank God.”

“Want some company?”

He squinted up at me, a crooked smile spreading across his whiskered face. “Of course.” He moaned as he stood upright. “Just promise you won’t laugh if you have to carry me the last two blocks.”

“I swear.”

We started slow, judging each other’s pace, working to find a rhythm that suited us both. My legs were longer, but his natural gait was faster than mine. It felt strangely intimate, trying to match our footsteps, trying to blend the beat of our shoes on the pavement into a single song. I would have liked to keep running, but I could tell he was ready for it to be over. I didn’t have to carry him as he’d feared, although he was certainly breathing harder than I was by the time we reached his front door.