Attachments(31)
Author: Rainbow Rowell

I slept until checkout time and left that Satanic dress in the room. (I had gym clothes in the car.)

Then I went back to my apartment.

Chris was there, of course, making tea. He’d just taken a shower. His hair was still damp and curly, and his T-shirt was lying over a chair. I swear he’s three miles long from the bottom of his throat to the top button of his jeans. He said he’d been worried about me.

“I didn’t want to see you,” I said.

“Didn’t?” he said, pouring hot water into two mugs.

“Don’t.”

“Beth …” His cool was back. He looked at me like he thought looking at me would be enough. “You can’t walk away from what’s between us. I’ve tried …We’re a spell,” he said. “We’re magic.”

I told him that I didn’t want magic, that I wanted someone who wouldn’t leave me if he could. Who wouldn’t feel like being committed to me was such a burden.

“I’m committed,” Chris said. “I’ve never cheated on you.”

Which wasn’t even what I meant. “You said you get tired when you look at me,” I said.

“I said that sometimes it’s too much.”

“Well, I want someone who doesn’t think so. I want someone whose heart is big enough to hold me.”

“You want someone whose love will fit around your finger.”

“You should write that down,” I said. “It sounds like a song lyric.”

It was a cold thing to say, but I was losing my nerve. I was looking around the kitchen, looking at him, thinking that it was a nice life, really. Thinking that it was absurd for me to break up with him for saying something out loud that, deep down, I already knew. Thinking how warm and loving he would be, what a wonderful day we could still have, if I could just let this go.

“I want you to leave,” I said.

“Where am I going to go?”

“I can’t let that be my problem.”

“You can’t? You’re unable to care about me?”

“You can stay with Stef. Or your parents.”

“This is my home, too.”

“Then I’ll go,” I said. “You’ll have to sign a new lease.” That was a lousy thing to say. I know he can’t afford the rent by himself.

“Beth, come on. Stop doing this. Look at me.”

“I can’t look at you anymore.”

We argued for a while longer before he agreed to leave. I left then, so that he could pack. I went over to my parents’ house.

My parents …who were jubilant when I told them what happened. I think they were happier about my breakup than Kiley’s wedding. “I knew it was a mistake to let him be in the family picture,” my mother said. “My smart, strong girl,” my dad kept saying.

Chris called me once while he was packing to ask about the record player. It’s mine, but he’s the only one who ever listens to records. I told him he could take it and the rest of the stereo equipment, too. “Jesus,” he said, “if I knew you were going to be so nice, I wouldn’t have already packed all of your CDs.” That made me laugh a little. “Yesterday,” he said, “you were all mine. Every freckle. And today, we’re talking about who gets the VCR.”

“I get the VCR,” I said.

I haven’t talked to him since. He calls me, but I don’t call him back. I’m too weak. He left one of his sweaters in the closet, and I’ve been crying into it for five weeks. I feel like I kicked one of my own kidneys out of the apartment.

Okay, I think that’s it. That’s what happened at my sister’s wedding.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Beth …I’m speechless. I’m practically type-less. Why did you wait so long to tell me?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I tried to call you from Arby’s, but you weren’t home, and when I called you that Monday, I found out that you’d had an even worse weekend than I’d had. Once you told me about the baby, I couldn’t tell you about Chris. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to waste even a tiny little bit of energy on me.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> You’re such a good friend.

I’m just shocked. I really didn’t think you’d ever break up with him.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Even though you wanted me to.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Sometimes.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I always knew he was selfish and self-indulgent and kind of lazy; those are practically prerequisites for playing lead guitar. I also knew that music was pretty much the only thing in life that he felt was worth the hassle. But I thought I was part of the “pretty much.” How could I stay with him, once I knew that he felt like being in love with me was his cross to bear?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> You couldn’t.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> The idea that he would be so overcome by love that marriage would just flatten him …

<<Jennifer to Beth>> It’s a cop-out.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Yeah, I know. When I think about it, which is pretty much constantly, I can’t decide if …

a. He’s capable of growing up and having a real relationship with someone. He just doesn’t love me enough. Or …

b. He’s not capable and also a jerk.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Probably both.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> But mostly the latter.

Do you think I’ve wasted the last nine years of my life?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Nyah, only the last two or three. You couldn’t have known when you spotted him in the student union that his heart was three sizes too small.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I think you might be humoring me. I think you think that Chris has been emotionally unavailable from day one—and that I wanted that for some awful reason.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> You’re right. I do think that.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> So I brought this on myself?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think it matters what I think or what I did or didn’t see coming. You had to see it for yourself. You had to see it through.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Thank you for being honest.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> If I ask you a hard question, will you answer it honestly?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Yes.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Do you think I’m responsible for my miscarriage?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> No.

Ninety-three percent no. I don’t think your attitude is to blame, but I don’t think it helped.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m not sure I can live with 93 percent.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> You can.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I want to try to get pregnant again, is that awful and dysfunctional?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I guess it depends on why.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I think the answer to why is—because I really want to have a baby. But I don’t trust myself not to have some twisted reason lurking in my subconscious. I feel like I’ve lost something so important. I know that I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve a baby.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Nobody deserves a baby.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I feel like we should be having this conversation over a bottle of Blue Nun.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> My bad. I thought we were.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> The idea that you’re hard to love is ludicrous.

CHAPTER 78

LUDICROUS.

It didn’t change anything, knowing that Beth was single. Had been single for weeks. For practically months.

What did that change? Nothing, right? Nothing, really.

“Are you listening?” Doris said. They were playing cards and eating hoagie sandwiches they’d bought from the machines. (Doris never took anything for free.) Lincoln had spent the night at his apartment again and come straight to work.

“I’m trying to tell you about tens around,” Doris said.

Chris wasn’t ever the problem. Not the biggest problem, anyway. Not that it mattered anymore.

“It’s not that complicated,” Doris said.

Nothing had changed. Nothing.

“Listen,” Doris said, “I need to talk to you about something. Your mother called me today.”

“What?”

“She was supposed to give me the recipe for that carroty chicken thing she makes, with the celery?

And the rice? Well, she ended up telling me that she was worried about you. She said you haven’t been coming home at night. Now, you didn’t tell me that the apartment was supposed to be a secret. You didn’t tell me that you weren’t going to tell your mother you were moving out.”

“But I haven’t moved out. I haven’t moved anything.”

“That’s crazy talk. Is this about that girl?”

“What girl?”

“You mother told me what that girl did to you, that actress.”

“Do you mean Sam? She didn’t do anything to me,” Lincoln said.

“Didn’t she leave you high and dry for a Puerto Rican?”

“No,” Lincoln said. “I mean, not exactly.”

“And now she’s calling your house.”

“Sam’s been calling my house?”

“And I don’t blame your mother for not giving you the messages,” Doris said. “Look at the secret you’re keeping from her. Are you meeting that girl at my apartment?”

“No.”

“It would explain why you’ve been so moony. And why you ignore everything else in a skirt.”

“No.” It came out too high. Lincoln pressed his palm into his temple and tried not to sound like a child. “Did you tell my mom about the apartment?”

“I’m too old to be lying to other people’s mothers,” Doris said.

IT WAS TOO late to talk to his mother when Lincoln got home that night.

When he came downstairs the next morning, she was in the kitchen, slicing potatoes. There was a pot steaming on the stovetop. Lincoln leaned on the counter next to her.

“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I’m here.”

“Are you hungry? I can make breakfast. But you’re probably rushing off to the gym.”

“No,” he said, “I’m not hungry. And I’m not rushing off. I was hoping we could talk.”

“I’m making potato soup,” she said, “but I could spare some bacon. Do you feel like bacon and eggs?” She was already cracking eggs into a cast-iron pan, pouring milk and stirring. “I’ve got English muffins, too. The good kind.”

“I’m really not very hungry,” he said. She didn’t look at him. Lincoln put his hand on her arm, and she scraped her fork against the bottom of the pan. “Mom,” he said.

“It’s so strange … ,” she said. He couldn’t tell from her voice whether she was sad or angry. “I can remember a time when you needed me for everything.

“You were just this little kitten, and you cried if I set you down even for a second. I don’t know how I managed to ever take a shower or make dinner. I don’t think I did. I was afraid to hold you too close to the stove.”

Lincoln stared down at the eggs. He hated when she talked like this. It was like accidentally seeing her in her nightgown.

“Why do you think I can remember that,” she asked, “when you can’t? Why does nature do that to us? How does that serve evolution? Those were the most important years of my life, and you can’t even remember them. You can’t understand why it’s so hard for me to hand you off to someone else.

You want me to act casual.”

“You’re not handing me off. There’s no one else.”

“That girl. That terrible girl.”

“There isn’t a girl. I’m not seeing Sam.”

“Lincoln, she calls here. There’s no point in lying about it.”

“I haven’t talked to her. I haven’t been here to get her calls. Look, I’m sorry I lied to you, that I didn’t tell you about the apartment. But I’m not with Sam. I’m not with anyone. I wish I was, with somebody, I should be. I’m almost twenty-nine. You should want me to be.”

She huffed.

“I want to show you the apartment,” he said.

“I don’t need to see it.”

“I want you to. I want to show you.”

“We’ll talk about it after you eat.”

“Mom, I told you, I’m not hungry …” He pulled her arm toward him, away from stove. “Please.

Come with me?”

LINCOLN’S MOTHER GOT into his car reluctantly. She hated riding in the passenger seat, she said it made her nauseous. (Eve said letting anyone else control a situation for more than thirty seconds was what made her nauseous.) She was quiet while he drove to his new neighborhood, just a few miles away, and parked in front of the apartment building.

“This is it,” he said.

“What do you want me to say?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to see it.”

He got out of the car before she could argue. She followed reluctantly, stopping outside the car, in the middle of the sidewalk, and at the steps. He didn’t stop with her, so she followed. Into the building, quietly up the stairs, across the threshold. “Willkommen.” Lincoln held the door open. His mother took a few steps inside—looked around, looked up—and then a few more steps toward the windows. Sunshine was falling into the living room in thick golden stripes. She held her hand up, open, into the light.

“I’ll show you the kitchen,” Lincoln said, after a moment, closing the door. “Well, what there is of it. You can pretty much see it from here. And here’s the bedroom.” His mother followed him into the next room, glancing down at his new mattress. “And the bathroom’s right here. It’s really small.” She walked to the bedroom window, looked outside, then sat in the window seat.