Page 60 of The Best Worst Thing

Sunday Morning

It’s around here somewhere,” Nicole said, rummaging through a stack of mail on her kitchen island—shaking—while Gabe stood in front of the refrigerator, keys in hand.

A few hours ago, she’d awoken in Logan’s bed to a silenced phone flooded with missed calls and text messages.

It wasn’t until Logan was lacing up his sneakers for his day-late, hangover-delayed long run that she’d finally mustered up the courage to unlock her screen.

All Gabe had wanted from her was a lousy piece of mail.

“No worries,” he said, running his hand over an empty calendar on the wall. The same one that used to be full of scribbles, full of the biggest details of the little life they’d built together. Nic hysteroscopy. Gabe Pebble Beach. Those types of things. “Take your time.”

Nicole nodded, still sifting, until she finally pulled out an oversize envelope, walked over to her husband, and placed it in his hands.

His wedding band, still on. His face, still soft.

If Alexis had seen anything, if she’d said anything to Kyle about last night, Gabe hadn’t heard it yet.

Nicole still had time. But she had to tell him. She had to tell him today.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should’ve texted you yesterday when I signed for it. I got distracted.”

“Really, it’s okay.” Gabe peeled open the envelope and peeked inside. It’d been overnighted from Switzerland. Some work thing he needed to sign, have notarized, then send back to a fancy bank in Zurich before end of business, Monday. “I know you had company.”

Her stomach fell to the floor. “What?”

“Your brother?” Gabe said. “I’m sure the rest of your family hates me by now, but Ethan and I still talk sometimes. Surprised he didn’t text or anything.”

Nicole stared at him, nodding.

“I don’t actually care, Nic,” he said before she’d managed to coax a single word out. “It’s no big deal. I was just talking to Kyle on the way over here—he was up my ass about the loan docs. Mentioned Alexis saw you at the LAX In-N-Out with some guy in a Michigan hat.”

Nicole, finally, let out a breath. This wasn’t going to hold up, but it did give her time. A few days, maybe even a week, to figure out exactly what to do. Exactly what to say.

“Yeah,” she said. “Quick trip, I guess.”

Gabe shrugged. “Anyway, sorry again. Guess my assistant had the wrong weekend address on file. I really didn’t mean to bother you.”

Nicole was quiet for a moment.

“Actually,” she said, “it’s kind of nice to see you like this.”

He laughed. “What? Like, calm?”

“Yeah,” she said, chuckling too. “Calm.”

He nodded, then scratched his forearm with the edge of the envelope and closed his eyes. Finally, he clamped his hands onto the marble and leaned forward.

“I miss you, baby,” he said. “I miss you so much.”

“Gabe …”

“Can we just talk? Please? It doesn’t have to be right now.

But soon, we really should. These past few months—on our anniversary, on my birthday—I just missed you.

I know you needed space. And you deserved it.

But I’m changing, I swear. I’m hardly drinking.

I’m playing tennis every morning. I think about you all the time.

It’s never been so clear to me, how much I love you.

You and the baby and …” He looked around the house, then scrunched his face and stared at her.

“I want all of this, Colie. I want to come home.”

Nicole bit down on her tongue, then unlatched the dishwasher. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

Gabe nodded, studying the floor as Nicole carefully positioned a single mug on the top rack. After a minute of silence, he rocked himself back from the counter and clicked his tongue.

“So,” he said. “Is my mom really sending you a package a day?”

“Yeah. I’ve been putting it all in the garage. It’s a total mess.”

“Want me to take a hack at it? I can bring everything upstairs. Break down the boxes, whatever you need.”

“Really, it’s fine,” she said. “I’ll get to it over Christmas. Go get your stuff signed.”

“Please let me do this one thing, all right? It won’t take long. Notary’s not free until noon, anyway.”

Nicole opened the door to the garage.

“Okay, sure,” she said. “Let me find the box cutter.”

An hour later, Gabe was lying on his back in their upstairs guest bedroom, his bare feet sticking out from beneath an almost-assembled crib as he tightened its last leg into the sturdy maple frame.

“Give it a little shake, okay?” he said to Nicole, who was standing in the doorway, holding four indistinguishable thingamabobs. At her feet, his teeming toolbox. “Make sure it’s good?”

She nodded, then rocked the crib a few times. It wobbled. Gabe grunted, then disappeared another couple of inches underneath the slats, muttering for one of his wrenches.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Nicole said, staring at the options in her grip.

She’d opened the windows to air the space out, and fall—cool, clean, and bright—had filled the room.

Birds were chirping. The sun was shining.

It was, oddly, kind of perfect. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. ”

Gabe laughed, sliding out from under the crib. He wiped the sweat off his brow, then stood up and reached into the palm of her hand. But when his fingers touched her skin, Nicole flinched.

“Sorry.” He pulled back. “I didn’t mean to, uh …”

Nicole shook her head, almost chuckling.

She was being ridiculous, wasn’t she? Putting up these walls, when all Gabe had done so far today—for the last couple of months, really—was suit up and show up and stay relatively quiet.

Sure, he still sent rambling emails, but no more than once or twice a week, and always at perfectly reasonable hours.

He didn’t call. He didn’t scream. He didn’t bang on the front door in the middle of the night.

Maybe she’d been wrong about him. Maybe they could actually do this.

Be friends.

Coparent.

Find peace.

Nicole slid against the crib and sat down, knees to chest, while Gabe got back to tightening every last nut and bolt.

“I didn’t mean it, you know,” she said. “That night at your hotel, when I said you were going to be a shitty dad.”

Gabe set down his wrench and tipped his head against the crib’s matte-finished frame. A soft breeze swept through the room. Somewhere, a wind chime rustled. It took Nicole a second to remember it was theirs. That they’d installed it, together.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I probably will be. Runs in the family.”

“Don’t say that. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

He shrugged, nodding as Nicole flexed her toes onto the hardwood. And then, for a minute, they both closed their eyes.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “That it actually worked. That we’re finally going to have a kid.”

“I know.” Nicole’s jaw was tight. Her chest ached. “I was so ready to stop. After that last round of IVF, I knew I was done. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how to admit I couldn’t keep going. That, in the end, all that pain was going to have been for nothing.”

Gabe turned to face her.

She’d forgotten, already, how handsome he was.

How normal and decent and real he could be when nobody else was watching.

When there was nothing to prove, no one to impress.

She’d forgotten, already, that at some point, she had cracked him.

That they’d cracked each other. That some speck of their story, some smidgen of it, must have been real.

That she had loved him. And that she had wanted this moment with him—this very Sunday morning—more than anything.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. For all of it. For everything I’ve put you through. Everything I’ve put us through.”

Nicole nodded. This was the nearest they’d ever been to closure.

The moment was right there, floating in front of them—close enough to twist around her fingers.

A soft, healthy end. Some strange new beginning.

All she had to do was say the words. Listen, Gabe.

I’m seeing someone. They were right there, waiting for her, bittersweet and true on the tip of her tongue.

But when she opened her lips to speak, nothing came out. She couldn’t make a sound. So she scrunched her face and fiddled with a stripped screw instead.

“You want a cup of coffee or something?” she said.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, before disappearing beneath the crib while Nicole headed downstairs to put on a pot of coffee and try to think of another way to tell her husband she was never, ever coming back.

She was rummaging through her freezer, searching for a box of biscotti she’d thrown in there a few weeks ago, when Gabe called out from upstairs.

“Hey, Colie? Can you bring a flathead screwdriver when you come up?”

She hollered back, face still in the freezer. “Why isn’t it in your toolbox? Where is it?”

“Shit drawer, probably! Can you just check for me?”

She groaned, then yanked open the drawer just to the left of their fridge. It was teeming with gift cards and postage stamps and pens that had run out of ink. Every last divider and tiny acrylic container, purely decorative now.

Nicole still kept the house pretty neat.

Sure, back in August, when things were really heating up with Logan and the podcast was brand-new, the place had become a bit of a mess.

But life had stabilized since then. She cleaned up after herself.

It was just, sometimes, things fell by the wayside.

Particularly when they were out of sight.

“Can’t find it!”

“Try the other shit drawer! In the garage!”

She groaned again, and then, just when she’d begun to head toward the garage, the doorbell rang.

For the first time in a decade, she hoped to god it was Cynthia Speyer, stopping by to pick her apart.

But when Nicole opened the front door, it wasn’t her mother-in-law standing there.

It was her boyfriend, dripping in sweat, holding a grease-stained cardboard box and two giant coffees.

He was wearing a Michigan hat.