Page 38 of Anywhere with You

In the morning, Cara posted a new reel.

I opened it, and there were the redwoods.

They were giant and ancient, rising so high that it seemed to take Cara ages to turn the camera to the tops.

The colors were so rich that I could hardly believe they were real.

Every angle, every view was breathtaking.

I couldn’t imagine how much more breathtaking it was in person.

Cara showed the trails, a cluster of ladybugs on a branch, a child napping in the shade of a massive tree trunk, and more people—people in hiking gear, people with expensive cameras—most of them silent because what could they say? There aren’t words for beauty like that.

Eventually, Cara turned the camera to herself. She’d found a bench, and her eyes looked teary, but not swollen. She was overwhelmed in this moment, maybe, but she wasn’t still spending her days crying.

“You have all been so kind,” she said. “You know this trip was a mix of planned and unplanned adventures.” She gave a little laugh.

“And thank you, most of you, for respecting what I said when Honey went back home. I don’t know”—she paused and shook her head—“I don’t know if she’ll ever watch this.

But Honey, I made it. I finished the trip. ”

She gave a sad little laugh and showed the trees again as she went on, “I made it, and I did it alone, and I’m proud of that.

But I also thought a lot about what you said at the Grand Canyon, about being alone not being any kind of victory.

That we, people, are made for each other.

I don’t know if I believed you, really. But now I do.

I wouldn’t be here without you. And I wouldn’t be able to sit here and see this beauty in the same way if you hadn’t shown me how. Well, you and Mary Oliver.”

She turned the camera back to herself, and she was blushing. “You left one of your books. I’ll make sure to get it back to you. I made sure that I wasn’t eating Cheetos while reading it, so any orange stains on the pages are yours alone.”

I smiled, surprised to feel tears forming in my eyes.

“Honey,” she said, “you asked about my aspirations, and I told you that they weren’t job-related, but I wouldn’t tell you anything more.

The truth is that I was embarrassed not to have any aspirations.

No ambitions. Career or otherwise. I’ve spent my whole life doing what my parents wanted, doing what my husband wanted, and that day I walked into your music store and asked you to take this trip with me was the only time in my life when I’ve made a big decision based on what I wanted.

Me. No one else. I thought not traveling alone was a failure, but you’re right.

It wasn’t. And from now on, whether I go alone or…

or not, I’m going to be figuring out how I want to live my life.

I’m going to be asking the question, and even if I don’t find the answer, I won’t stop asking. ”

There was a pause, a moment when it was just Cara and me, looking at each other across this distance.

Then she smiled. “Thank you, Honey. I’ll be back in town in a week. I…I’m going to take the long way home.”

I didn’t watch the video again. I sat with my phone in my hands, in a house half full of boxes.

Bridget had never read a single poem, even when I asked her to.

It wasn’t a comparison, exactly. I wasn’t thinking, gee, Cara’s a much better person because she’ll open a book.

But I couldn’t help but see that she was reaching out to me in a way that felt more tangible than saying my name on Mesmio.

She was reading what I loved, to know me better, the same way she’d listened closely to my playlist, even the songs she decided after that she didn’t like.

The same way, when I said Look at this view , she stopped and looked.

It was lovely, when someone made an effort like that.

I tried to set my thoughts aside long enough to get some packing done before work. I had a couple of hours, but then I had a midmorning tour at an apartment complex nearby. I needed to get moving.

I connected my phone to the living room speakers and, after a moment of hesitation, started our road trip playlist.

I filled box after box with the detritus of my married life.

I’d expected to have to think about each object, to make serious decisions about what was Bridget’s and what was mine, but it was easy, in the end.

These were the knickknacks, the art, the coffee mugs I’d picked out.

These were the other things, the ones Bridget had bought or used far more than me.

It began to feel like our lives had barely overlapped.

And that made me start thinking about what I wanted my next relationship to be like, whenever that happened. I wanted to buy only things we both loved. I wanted to use everything, every plate and pillow. I didn’t want to make those decisions alone anymore.

I thought about Cara’s clean house, her porcelain dishes, her extra-fluffy towels.

I imagined arguing with her, a thousand fierce and absurd arguments over houseplants and the thermostat and which movie to see.

Cara would have an opinion, she wouldn’t give in because it was easy or because she didn’t care.

That was a truth about Cara that felt integral to her: She cared.

I shook the thoughts away and returned to my packing. I filled and duct-taped another box, pushing it next to the others by the front door, where Badger sniffed it suspiciously, then jumped on top and looked at me, waiting for praise for his accomplishment.

I packed half the pots and pans, half the mismatched cups and glasses. I left everything I hated: the slow coffee maker, the ancient vacuum cleaner, the couch, most of what hung on the walls.

And I couldn’t help it—I looked for clues that I might’ve missed. Were there love letters in that shoebox? Condoms in this old purse? I didn’t pretend to respect Bridget’s privacy. I searched everything, everywhere.

But there was nothing. There was no way I could’ve guessed that Bridget and Lorenzo had been together for months.

Finally, I took the picture from my bedside table and stared at Bridget and my younger self, so beautiful in our wedding gowns, beaming with joy and love and hope.

I took a special trip to the dumpster and tossed it, and when I heard the glass shatter, I didn’t look back.

After Cara had come into the store that first day, asking if I knew, I’d wondered if I should have known, if the evidence was everywhere and I’d been too in love or too self-obsessed or just too busy to notice.

But no. Here I was, looking for the evidence, and there was nothing.

So why had Cara come to the store that first time? Why ask if I knew? What difference could it have made to her?

It was one more question that I hadn’t thought to ask.

Maybe once Lorenzo was gone, she was looking for someone else to blame. But that wasn’t Cara.

What would have been going through her mind? I tried to put myself there, in her place, walking through the door, hearing the little bell ring.

I thought of today’s Mesmio reel, about her trying to figure out what her life would be from now on.

She was grieving, full of disbelief that her marriage was over, full of blame, but not toward me. No, if I knew Cara, she already had a target for all that loathing: herself.

She was hoping…she was hoping that I’d known about the affair for months, too. That I’d done everything I could to save my marriage, too. That we could both feel foolish and betrayed and angry together. That by sharing it, maybe we could carry the weight.

Because Cara hated to go it alone.

My eyes closed in pain for her.

It was a guess, all of it, but I had no doubt that if Cara and I ever spoke about it, she would tell me that I was right. Consciously or subconsciously, she’d only been looking for an ally in her pain.