never seen her become the storm, and it leaves him confused. He opens his mouth to apologize until he realizes that’s all he ever does. So instead he waits, takes a deep breath, and in time, allows some of the storm to infect him too, allows his own anger to leak into his throat, an emotion forced into being by the absolute absence of all others in the face of her attack.
“Finish what you were saying.”
Still with her back to him, she asks, “What?”
“You were listing the things you hate. There was something else on that list. What w as it? Was it me? Were you going to say that you hate me?”
She steps closer to the rank of poplars and beech and calls out for their son , her distress causing her voice to crack on the second syllable. Without the storm for competition, her voice carries far and clear, echoing through the trees long after she has fallen quiet. If Cody is anywhere close by at all, he will hear her.
“Were you going to say you hate me?” Mike repeats, and pushes away from the boulder. The backpack slides off the rock and crumples to the soft earth. He leaves it there and takes a step closer to his wife. A timid voice inside him, the same one that has kept him quiet, kept him characterized as weak his whole life, advises he stay silent until the smoke has cleared from this particular blaze. But he doesn’t want to, not now, maybe not ever again. Incredibly, for a man unaccustomed to giving up on anyone but himself, he thinks he may have found the real reason for this seemingly ill-advised jaunt into the woods. He thinks he might have brought Emma here to find out, not if she still loves him or if there is anything left to save, but to find out if he still loves her, if he wants there to be something left to save. Because right at this moment, he is emboldened and reinvigorated to find that he might not, and that he might finally have the words to tell her as much.
The canopy drips fat, cold drops of rainwater down upon them. Steam from hot earth cooled by the storm rises in a lazy mist around their legs. Emma screams for Cody again, keeps her back to her husband, her shoulders tensing through her slicker at the sound of his approach. She folds her arms tightly. Of course she does , thinks Mike, in keeping with frigid tradition .
“Were you?” he asks again, drawing to a halt a few feet behind her.
“Just…just stop, Mike. Please,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Let’s just focus on what’s important. I just want to find Cody and get out of here.”
As she cup s her mouth again, preparing another summons for their wayward son, he grabs her by the shoulders, perhaps not hard enough to hurt, but harder than she is used to, at least. The surprise on her face is a wonderful thing. He relishes it, thinks that maybe he could get used to having her look at him that way again, because he’s pretty sure the last time she looked at him with any respect, was on the day he first opened the door to her all those many years ago. But of course, she didn’t know him then.
Sir, are you a registe red voter in the state of Ohio? Good, then if I might have a couple of minutes of your time…?
He’d been willing to give her the rest of his life. But now, rather abruptly and terrifyingly, he is no longer sure that’s still the case. Because he was not altogether surprised to hear that she has accumulated her share of misgivings over the course of their marriage, even if hearing them hurt. Such things stand to reason. But she might be surprised to learn that he has misgivings of his own, chief among them one she threw back in his own face: trust, or more specifically, the lack of it.
“Where was all of this during counseling?” he asks. “Counseling that you suggested and I paid for. Where was all of this when it might have done some good, huh?”
She will not meet his gaze.
“If you hate me, I’ve probably earned it,” he tells her, even as she jerks free of his grip and glares