“I know.”
“Do you?”
I thought about that day. I had left Annie in the kitchen. She said she was going to make some lunch and read. She had been distant. I had been distant. We both knew it wasn’t working and didn’t want to talk about it. So it sat there. The relationship. Like a great, grinning eight-hundred-pound gorilla. In the corner of each and every room in our two-bedroom flat. Peeling away the skin of our collective life. Grinning and eating. Piece by piece. Getting bigger. Getting harder to ignore every day.
That particular morning, however, had been better. We talked about her work. I made a joke. She laughed. We even talked about what we might do for Christmas, a conversation that made the considerable assumption there was another Christmas together in our future. I remember she reached out and held me close before I went out the door. Thought that was a good sign. I was only half-right.
I ran seven hard miles along the lake. Felt loose and fast. Fell into an easy rhythm. Then I walked for a bit, enjoyed the scenery and the sweat. Just like always. It was a little over two hours by the time I returned to the apartment.
I came in through the back door. The kitchen was dark, the counter wiped clean. I remember walking to the sink and feeling the sponge. Still wet. A single bead of water hung off the faucet and then fell. I wanted to yell her name but stopped myself. Instead, I walked into the living room. Like the kitchen, it was dark. I could hear a clock ticking on a table next to the sofa. We had bought it at a barn sale in Wisconsin because it looked old and cool. Now it just sounded loud.
Beyond the living room was our bedroom and a closet. Open and half-empty. Near the front door, a table. On it a solitary pool of soft light warmed the sharp, white creases of a single envelope. I walked over and picked it up. My name was scratched across the front. In a comfortable, familiar scrawl that hurt to look at. I ticked the envelope open and found myself back in the kitchen, reading in the late-afternoon darkness. The words ran together as my eyes tore over the pages, picking out the operative phrases. It was beautiful. It was elegant. It was heartbreaking. It was seven pages. It was the speech. Annie was moving on. And I was not moving with her.
I hated her. Hated myself for hating her. Hated being in the apartment. Being in that moment. I’d get over it. Sure. But still, a year later, the ache doesn’t forget.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said.
“I could have told you. Face-to-face.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“What do you think would have happened? If we had talked it out?”
I had thought about a lot of things in the past year. But never that.
“How many times had we broken up?” she said. “How many times in the last year had we agreed it was over? Eight, ten, once a month?”
I smiled. Sad, but a smile.
“At least,” I said.
“Exactly. Neither one of us had the strength to do it face-to-face. Neither of us could have ever walked away. Not like that.”
“But we had to.”
“Yes.”
“So that was the best way?”
“It wasn’t the best way, Michael. It was the worst. But it was also the only way. Like I said, I’m sorry.”
She wiped away a lonely tear, took a sip of tea, and looked back out at the storm. I noticed that she jiggled one foot against the ground and the cup shook lightly in her hand. Our relationship had taken its pound of flesh. I hoped it wasn’t hungry for more.
“You did what you had to do, Annie. What you thought was right. I know that now. Pretty much always known that, I think.”
She didn’t respond. So we sat and listened to the wind. Two people, comforting a relationship that left town a long time ago. And wasn’t coming back. After a while she got up quietly, found her coat, and headed to the door. I followed. Annie turned.
“You’re a good person, Michael. That’s why I loved you back then. That’s why I love you right now. For a long time I thought that would be enough. For both of us. Turns out it wasn’t enough for either.”
“I know.”
She tilted her head.
“You do?”
“I ran into you the other day. By accident. With the guy.”
She blushed, more than I wanted, and pulled her coat tight.
“Wow. Didn’t know that.”
“Serious?”
She looked up at me. This time she told the truth. No matter how much it hurt.
“Yeah, Michael. Pretty serious.”
“I’m happy for you.”
I didn’t know if I meant it until I said it. Then I knew it was right.
“I won’t be at the funeral,” she said. “Don’t think I can take it. But I’ll stop by the grave next week. Say my good-byes.”
Annie hugged me. Then she left. I sat by the window and watched as the Hawk blew her down Lakewood and across Addison. In a small frame, on a table by the window, was a picture of myself and Nicole, snapped at a Cubs game last summer. Saturday afternoon in the bleachers. I picked up the photo and lingered, if only for a moment, in a newfound sense of freedom, joined at the hip with freedom’s ugly cousin: an all-encompassing sense of isolation otherwise known as loneliness.
CHAPTER 40
Nicole was buried two days later. On a Tuesday afternoon. She had two sisters. I stood between them at the grave and held their hands. Rodriguez stood behind me, dark glasses shading a face of stone. I didn’t see Annie. I didn’t need to look.
Rachel Swenson offered a reading at the service. Bennett Davis was in the back of the crowd. Tight-lipped, he gave me a nod at the edge of Nicole’s grave, dropped a rose into the hole, and drifted away. Bennett would be okay. I’d check up on him in a day or so.
Nicole’s death was a run-of-the-mill tragedy, nothing more than a one-day story in Chicago. Young black woman, forensic scientist, dedicated her life to catching killers, done in by the same. Nice angle, but ultimately, just another random act of violence. Or so it went. Rodriguez kept my name out of the public record and I appreciated it.
“You haven’t returned my calls.”
I was walking away from the service. Alone. Diane came up from behind. She was dressed in black and looked every bit the part.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s been tough.”
“I know. She was my friend, too.”
I held her close. Diane cried for more than a moment. I waited and felt the first bit of peace inside. It surprised me.
“You want to come over?” I said.
She pulled away, almost embarrassed, and moved back within herself.
“I can’t. I’ve got to do the six o’clock.”
“How about after? We can get some dinner.”
Now she was far away. Or at least seemed that way.
“Let’s see how it goes. I’ll give you a call.”
I nodded and turned to go. Diane reached out and touched me at the elbow.
