Chapter 35

I don’t know how to describe Saturday.

It’s like nothing’s changed and everything’s changed. Like we go through all the same motions we always do, but the guts have been scooped out. Like my own guts have been scooped out.

I make pancakes, to fortify Gabe and Maddie for the move. And Gabe stands on his stool and helps. Maddie comes in and smiles at us, but it’s a hollowed-out smile. I smile at her, but it’s only on the outside of my face.

The last two nights I’ve gone to O’Hannihans and drunk a lot of Jameson. I’ve listened to Clark and Henry sling bullshit over my head and been grateful that they haven’t demanded to know what the fuck is wrong with me.

I’m pretty sure they know. And like the excellent friends they are, they haven’t said a word.

Meanwhile, I’ve worked hard to not be an asshole, because right now all I want to do is sulk and lash out. But I’ve been pretty good. I haven’t yelled at my crew or spewed nastiness at my boss or gotten in a fight with my friends. I haven’t driven while under the influence. And I haven’t taken advantage of anyone, not even the twenty-something who draped herself across my lap last night and asked if I could give her a ride home. I peeled her off me, called her a cab, and didn’t feel a pang of regret.

I’ve also tried hard not to sink into self-pity, because this is the bed I made, and if I had to do it over again, I’d make it the same way. If I’d wanted it to be different, I sure as fuck could have made different decisions.

When I looked through the peephole five years ago and saw Penelope Mills standing on my doorstep, I could have not opened the door. A better man would not have opened the door.

After Maddie saw Penelope leave my apartment with her shoes and bra in her hand, I could have chased after her and begged her to forgive me for not being a better man.

But neither of those things would have actually made me a better man.

After the pancakes, we load Maddie’s car and I follow her in the truck to Seattle, where we unload Maddie’s and Gabe’s few possessions into the new place. It’s a solid apartment, nothing special, but sturdy and well-kept, in a good neighborhood, and just the right size for them. I tell her she did good, and she smiles, but only with the outside of her face.

Gabe dances around the apartment. He clearly loves it. He loves the window seat in the living room the most. I bet he’ll come up with a million great games to play there.

Not that I’ll be around much to see them. But you know.

Maddie and I stand awkwardly in the nearly empty living room. As nice as the place is, it feels blank and echoey because she doesn’t have furniture. Part of me just wants to walk away, because it’s not going to get any easier to say goodbye. But this other part of me can’t leave them here, my people, without doing something about the emptiness and the echo. So I offer to follow her and Gabe to Ikea so they can use my truck for a shopping trip. I know Maddie was able to save a little bit by staying with me, so I figure she has enough to buy at least a few things for the apartment.

And that’s weird too. The three of us out in public, doing a thing that families do, buying furniture for an apartment, but that’s not how this is. It’s not how it will ever be.

We go back to the apartment and haul the stuff—a couch, a table and chairs, two beds, and a night table for Maddie—into the elevator and up to the apartment. I lay the boxes out in the middle of the living room and we stand there awkwardly, and then she says, “Jack. You can go.”

“You’re going to need some help with the assembly,” I say.

“I can read Ikea instructions,” she says darkly.

“It’s easier with two people,” I say.

I expect her to fight, but she lets me help. And it’s fun, in a hollowed-out way. All the parts laid out on the floor, passing the instructions back and forth, tossing the Allen wrench over the wreckage between us, laughing when we fuck it up.

We build Gabe’s new bunk bed first, and he’s like an explosion of little-boy joy, watching and “helping” us, and beside himself with excitement as we finish. I build him a fort on the lower bunk, and he takes his Legos in there, and you can hear him humming contentedly.

Next we work on Maddie’s bed, and we’re like a well-oiled machine now, barely speaking as we wordlessly translate the pictures on the instructions to the parts in the real world. We’re in the zone, from a technical perspective.

But it still feels that same way, like something missing its soul.

I start to wish…

I start to wish I were this other guy. The guy who belongs here. The guy whose job it is to tighten the cams and hoist the slats into the bed frame. The guy who’ll be sleeping on this bed tonight.

The better man.

And then we’re done.

“You don’t have to stay, Jack. We’ve got this. Gabe and I are going to be fine. It’s a nice place, right?”

She’s not quite looking at me as she says it.

“It’s a great place.”

My voice is too hearty.

“So—can you take him next weekend?”

“Yeah,” I say. I almost say, Do you want me to stay? Just tonight? To make sure everything’s okay? But what wouldn’t be okay? It’s just an apartment, and she’s a competent adult human. She can handle anything that happens. And I don’t really want her to say no.

I don’t want to hear her tell me they’re fine on their own.

So I hug Gabe goodbye, and then Maddie and I stand facing each other awkwardly. I don’t hug her. Because—we don’t hug. Too complicated. Too much water under the bridge. You know. Like I said, originally.

And I leave.