Page 20 of Regret Me Not
“I’ll test it gently,” Hal whispered. “When you’re ready.”
Eventually they turned and took off to the north, letting the wind and the late-afternoon shadows batter at them. They walked carefully, dodging the big bits of broken shells that were sharp enough to cut through old tennis shoes if the traveler were unwary. When Pierce’s leg began to complain loudly instead of nag subtly, he turned around and let Hal escort him home.
Pierce was older, and supposedly cynical and bitter, but he found himself clinging to the younger man’s promise for the rest of the walk, even through the steady rain at the end. They returned to finish the laundry and remake the bed, talking quietly under the sound of the rain driving against the sliding glass door and the roar of the pounding surf. It made Pierce feel small, like the brightly lit condo was a quiet fortress of possibility against the bleak elements, and that feeling of intimacy lasted long into a quiet evening of eggs and chips for dinner before giggling their way throughBob’s Burgers.
For once, Pierce didn’t fall asleep on the couch. At eleven o’clock he stood and stretched and reached for his cane. Hal stood at the same time and turned off the television.
“I’ll turn off the lights,” he offered, yawning. He blinked and looked quietly at Pierce. “If you, I don’t know, wanted to roll a little closer to the center of the bed tonight, I wouldn’t grab your ass or anything.”
Pierce smiled. “I never thought you would.”
The wind gusted hard against the glass and they shared a look, haunted, searching for protection and companionship.
Two people under the covers—maybe tonight they’d be close enough to share warmth.
Pierce had just slid into bed and was setting his phone in the charger when it buzzed.
“You have friends?” Hal joked, although he’d seen Pierce take brief texts from his sister, checking in every day to make sure he wasn’t dead.
“Apparently not,” Pierce said grimly. “It’s Cynthia.”
“Does she not know about the time change?” Hal eyed the phone with distaste—it was after eleven.
“Nope,” Pierce said cheerfully. On that thought, he hit Connect and yawned directly into the phone. “Evening”—yawn—“Cynthia. Nice of you to call.”
“You’re not in bed yet. You don’t go to bed before twelve,” she said flatly over the speaker.
“I’m still recovering,” Pierce told her, stung. “And I was just going to bed after a rather busy day for me. Can I help you?”
He heard her blow out a breath, which was usually her cue for remembering the social niceties. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Hal she needed a checklist. He used to think it was her way of making sure she didn’t offend anybody. It hadn’t been until this last year that he’d realized she’d used the checklist in the same way zealots bombing other countries used the dogma of their faith—as a crutch to support her hypothesis that she wasn’t a bad person.
“I apologize,” she said civilly. “You’re right. There’s a time difference, and I was thoughtless.”
He skipped the part where he said “That’s okay” because it wasn’t. “What can I do for you?” he asked politely.
“Did you file for divorce already?” she asked.
“I’ve been in the hospital or Florida,” he said, stomach sinking. “Remember, Cynthia? The hospital? I was wrapped in bandages, and you said, ‘Pierce, I forgive you.’”
“And you said you wanted a divorce. I still don’t understand.” Her voice lowered, and the brittle exoskeleton of bitch grew a little softer. “I don’t understand why that was the final straw. You never did explain it to me.”
Pierce sighed, part of him wanting to claim the easy way out and pretend exhaustion, but part of him knowing that he was ending a seven-year relationship, and he owed her better than that.
“Cynthia, what did my sister ever do to you?”
“Your sister? I don’t know—nothing, I guess. What does she have to do with this?”
“You kept saying she deserved to be poor, deserved to not get nice things, deserved to have to work when her husband had a good job. She’d earned that, you said. All the time. ‘Welp, if Sasha didn’t want to struggle, you know what she should have done.’”
“Well, she got knocked up, Pierce—you know that—”
“Yeah, but she’s a good mother. She’s kind. She’s a better sister than I’ve ever deserved. Why doesn’t she deserve a good life? Why does every struggle she has have to be… some sort of bill God hands her for a mistake she made a million years ago when she was a stupid kid? When does that term of service end?”
“Pierce, I don’t know what this has to do with us—”
“Everything,” he said quietly, pretty sure she would never get it. “What if I made a mistake? What if I invested in the wrong thing or trusted the wrong accountant? How long would I hear about that? What if someday I vote for the wrong politician and he screws up the world? Do I ever get to fix that with you? Because marriage is based on trust, sweetheart—and I finally got to the point where I couldn’t trust you to forgive me if I so much as bought the wrong pair of tennis shoes.”
“But… but I never said any of those things about you,” she said, her voice wobbling.