Page 82 of Not You Again

Maureen shakes her head and picks up another photo from the end table. It’s a candid: Kit’s dad and his mom sitting in lawn chairs in front of the trailer, laughing. She runs her finger along the metal frame. “Neither of us do.” Her smile cracks under pressure. “It’s been a decade now, but it all feels fresh most of the time.”

“Were they close?” I murmur, a far corner of my mind whirring to life. All this time I assumed Kit had rushed home purely to protect his mom.

“They were. Kit wouldn’t be who he is without Harry being so involved.” Maureen nods. “He passed very suddenly. There was no way for us to prepare or adjust. One day he was here and happy, and the next he was gone.”

I swallow the lump forming in my throat. I want to ask more, but it feels like we’ve crossed into sacred ground, and I don’t want to disturb it.

Kit’s voice startles me. “Twenty fourteen was a hard year.”

He leans against the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. His brown eyes are deep with an aching I can’t touch, and a small crease forms in his forehead.

After a beat of silence, he joins us in the living room, taking a seat on the recliner in the corner. He bows forward, his elbows on his knees, and clasps his hands together. My gaze falls to his wedding band and my heart lurches.

“Dad passed in November,” Kit says in a calm, quiet voice.

“I remember.” Tears build behind my eyes and I shake my head. All I can think of is that chilly night we’d warmed each other in bed. The night I told him I loved him. The morning I woke, and he was gone.

Maureen reaches for Kit, squeezing his forearm. Kit rests one of his hands over hers. “Kit came home from school, and we made it through together.”

Kit shakes his head and makes a frustrated noise. “I left you,” he says to his mom, voice pulled taut.

Maureen shakes her head. “I forgave you for that a long time ago.”

Kit gives his mom’s hand another squeeze, then his eyes meet mine. He clears his throat and tells me, “My grief was too heavy. I thought maybe if I ran fast enough, it couldn’t catch me.”

Something hot and sharp digs under my diaphragm, and I press a hand to my stomach to feel my breath. I remember the voice mail I left him when he disappeared. After a week of waiting to hear from him, I finally broke. Every edge of me was jagged and raw and aching with his absence, and I needed to purge. So I called. When he didn’t answer, I left a voice mail telling him things I’d have never told him had I known why he left.

Then he came back, trying to reach me. I was so damn stubborn, so concerned with how he hurt me, when I should have seen how deeply he was hurting too.

I can still feel the pain he left me with like it was yesterday, but the anger I feel rising to the surface now is different. I want to pound on his chest and shake him and demand he tell me why he wouldn’t just let me be there for him. Why not call me sooner? I’d have been there for him. Didn’t he trust me? Wasn’t I enough?

Kit’s eyes find mine, and he holds my gaze. There’s a whole conversation in that look, one I wish he hadn’t waited ten years to have.

VOICE MAILBOX OF CHRISTOPHER WATSON

NOVEMBER 19, 2014

Hi. It’s me. [sniff]

I don’t know where you are and I—

[sigh]

Missing you hurts, and I just wish you’d call and tell me you were okay. But you can’t even give me that. Do I mean that little to you?

I can’t believe I gave you everything and you just … you took it with you. That piece of me is gone, and you can’t even tell me where you took it. It feels like you were just some fever dream my brain made up. I should have known better. No one can be as perfect as that.

I thought I loved you, but how can I love someone who just leaves me while I’m sleeping? How do you love a ghost?

I hate you for this. Maybe one day I won’t, but right now …

[sniff]

If you come back, I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to see you or hear from you. Leave me alone.

I guess this is—this is goodbye.

I hope you’re happier where you are. Without me.