After Hank died, Rhys kept saying we should go ahead with the wedding. The venue was booked, the deposit was paid, and he didn't want us to lose either. But he was barely eating. Most nights, he hardly slept.
“Let's wait,” I said. “I need time to settle into residency. We can decide what comes next when things feel less raw.”
The months passed, but his grief stayed close. Mine did too. A car commercial could leave me crying in the shower, where I didn't have to explain myself or ask him to carry my sadness on top of his. Rhys went running until his legs were tired enough to quiet his thoughts.
We never painted the apartment. One weekend he offered to start, but he had two jobs and it was his only day off. He looked worn out.
“We'll do it another time,” I said.
“I'm sorry.” He sat on the couch and drew me between his knees, holding my hips as he pressed his face to my stomach.
“You don't have to apologize.”
“I want to be better for you.”
“Don't.” I ran a hand over his hair. “I don't need you to be better. I don't need anything from you. I'm okay.”
I wasn't. I was scared he wouldn't find his way back to himself. I worried I'd pulled him away from his friends, his work, and his family, then left him alone with a loss I couldn't ease.
I missed Hank too. He'd felt like the father I'd always wanted, and then I felt guilty for thinking that when my own dad had given up so much to give me a good life. He'd taken jobs he hated and kept working. That was how he showed love. He wasn't an affectionate man, though, and there were limits to what he could give.
The last time we visited Rhys's family before Hank died, his dad cried when he saw us. That night, as we were getting ready for bed, Hank hugged me and said, “Sleep well. Love you so much, kiddo.”
Afterward, I shut myself in the bathroom and turned on the tap. I cried without understanding why. Maybe I missed the kind of home where someone said those words without hesitation.
Hank had said them to Rhys and his sisters all their lives. After the funeral, they each had the words tattooed in Hank's handwriting. They told me I could get one too, but it didn't feel right. Hank wasn't my father. He never could be.
Our lives began to pull apart by degrees. Still, whenever we were together, I loved him with a force that frightened me.
Every so often, Rhys asked if I wanted to look at venues or taste cakes. He tried to sound hopeful. I tried to make the small life we'd built feel like enough for him.
“There isn't a rush,” I'd tell him. “The hospital keeps me busy.”
I didn't want him to feel required to celebrate while he was learning how to live without Hank. It didn't seem fair. Hank had been in his early seventies—not young, but not old enough for Rhys and his sisters to be preparing to lose their mother so soon after losing their father. Irene was eleven years younger than Hank. Weren't people in their seventies supposed to have more time?
Some nights we managed dinner between shifts. Most evenings, Rhys came in after I was in bed, kissed the top of my head, and went to shower.
Sometimes he came back and thought I was asleep. Then I heard him crying quietly. I would lie still and ask whatever might be listening to make it hurt less for him.
I made promises in my head. I'd make the apartment more comfortable. I wouldn't complain about work. I'd stop resenting the rain. If I asked nothing of him, maybe he would be all right.
We would get through it.
My fellow interns had always invited me out, but I'd usually said no. Lately Rhys was the one urging me to go.
“I won't be home anyway,” he said. “You should have people here.”
“I have people.”
“Not in Seattle. You need that too.”
So I went. It was fun, and I stayed later than I meant to. When I got home, Rhys was asleep in our bed. I hated that I'd missed even a little time with him.
I felt guilty and lost. I didn't know how to make anything better.
The next morning, I told him I'd missed him.
“I got home and passed out,” he said. “You wouldn't have had much fun with me.”
After that, I went out a couple of nights a week with Taye, a fourth-year who'd taken me under her wing, and two first-years she was informally helping, Grace and Martin. Having friends again made the days feel less lonely.
When Rhys finally had a full evening free, he joined us at a bar near the hospital. I was glad he came and nervous about it. Part of me wished we'd stayed home together, but he said it mattered that I had people in Seattle.
Taye, Grace, and Martin spent most of the night talking about the hospital or the professors they'd hated in veterinary school. I hadn't realized how little else we talked about until I saw Rhys go quiet. He seemed to drift away from the conversation, and I didn't know how to draw him back in.
Martin asked what Rhys did for work. Rhys told him about the boat-repair jobs.
“What kind of degree do you need for that?” Martin asked. Maybe he meant it as a real question, but it landed badly. Rhys had always met any suggestion that he was less capable by making a joke first.
He joked that he'd earned a degree in boat repair and still needed an extra year to finish it. Everyone laughed, and the conversation moved on. For days afterward, though, Rhys seemed further away.
I wanted to reach him. I could see him withdrawing, but I couldn't find a way to stop it.
When I asked what was wrong, he'd hold my face and kiss my forehead. “You're perfect,” he'd say. For a while, we let the rest of the world disappear between us. Later, with him curled against me in bed, I'd realize he'd never answered the question.
Then Irene fell. She'd had Parkinson's for years, she finally admitted, and her symptoms had worsened since Hank's death.
“I'm old,” she said when we called. She waved a hand as if the matter were settled. “If Hank and I had started our family earlier, I'd still be running around. Things wear out.”
She wasn't old. She was older than my parents, but Rhys and his sisters had only just buried their father. They shouldn't have to imagine losing their mother too.
Martin helped me arrange several days away from the hospital. Rhys and I flew to the coast. Michael, Lou, and Irene were all squeezed into the house at the end of the long drive. As soon as Rhys was home, some of the tension left him. He talked more. He laughed.
For the second time, I went upstairs to the little bathroom, turned on the water, and cried into my hands. I knew I couldn't ask him to return to Seattle with me.
I couldn't be the person who took him away from the place and family he needed.
When I suggested he stay while Irene recovered from her fall, he looked at me for a long moment.
“Are you sure?”
“Completely.”
We agreed he'd stay for a month while he and his sisters worked out a longer-term plan.
I flew back alone. The apartment felt different when I walked in. I knew, though I couldn't have said how, that Rhys wouldn't live there again.
At first we talked constantly. Then our days filled up. He was finishing the repair jobs his father had left behind. I was exhausted from long hours at the veterinary hospital, watching surgeons work while I struggled for a chance to assist. When the other interns complained about the same thing over drinks, I nodded along. The truth was that even being asked to place a stitch felt beyond me.
Rhys's sister still had a year of graduate school ahead of her. After that, she planned to return and help with Irene's care. Rhys told me as if it were good news. “I'll be home soon.”
You are home already, I thought. I wondered if I would ever feel that way anywhere.
Bianca texted to ask how I was managing with Rhys gone. I felt too guilty to tell her anything but some version of Fine. How are you?
I went with Taye to happy hours and trivia nights. I watched her reality dating show with the group. Most of the time, though, I sat in bed with tea, wearing Rhys's old college sweatshirt and falling asleep in front of reruns.
The night before Rhys was supposed to visit, Irene fell again and broke her wrist. He had to cancel.
“It's okay,” I told him. “I'm probably too tired to do much this weekend anyway.”
We began missing calls. Sometimes I fell asleep on the couch while waiting for him. Sometimes work pulled him in until he lost track of time. He always apologized and promised he'd do better.
“Rhys,” I said, “it's really okay. We're both busy.”
I was scheduled to work over Christmas, so he planned to come the following week. On his way to the airport, his car slid off the road. He wasn't hurt, but he missed his flight.
“I'll come tomorrow,” he said.
Tomorrow was the only full day off I had during his visit. Now he wouldn't arrive until evening.
“Sure,” I said. “Sounds good.”
He stayed for thirty-six hours, then left again.
Some part of me still believed that if I gave him enough space and time, we'd find our way back to each other.
One night, after he'd canceled a video call at the last minute, I went to the interns' usual bar. Taye and Grace weren't there.
“Grace had a family wedding near the coast,” Martin said. “I think she took Taye with her.”
Taye was good in a crowd. Like Dane, she could spot the person standing alone and find a way to bring them into the conversation. Maybe that was why she'd taken me in.
I didn't think much of being alone with Martin. We had one drink. I was tired, so he offered me a ride home.
At my door, he insisted on walking me up. It didn't seem unusual. Rhys used to make sure our friends got to their cars or apartments safely. He'd gone out of his way to meet Livia after her internship and walked Bianca across campus more than once.
Martin hugged me good night. At first I thought that was all he meant to do. When I realized he was kissing me, I froze.
I let it happen for a moment. Then I started to push him away. He had already pulled back and understood I hadn't kissed him back. He looked embarrassed.
That made me feel worse. Had I encouraged him somehow? Had I acted as if I were available? I didn't know. A sharp pain started behind my eye. I felt dizzy and sick.
“I'm not available,” I managed. “You know that.”
Martin gave a short laugh. “The boat-repair guy?”
“Rhys,” I said. My stomach turned.
“He isn't here, Mara,” Martin said. “He hasn't been here for a long time. I am.”
I went inside and called Rhys. It was late for me and even later on the coast. The first call went to voicemail. I called again. He answered on the third ring, half asleep.
I told him everything at once. I needed the truth out of me, no matter what it did to us.
After I finished, I had to ask him to say something.
“This isn't working anymore,” he said. His voice sounded empty.
I wanted to take back the call. I wanted him to stop before he said anything else.
I barely heard the rest. A few pieces reached me through the pounding in my ears.
…we were young when we got together… things changed… what's best for us…
I didn't cry. It couldn't be real. He'd promised he'd always love me. This couldn't be happening.
But a quieter part of me said it had always been heading here. I'd felt it from that first trip back to Michigan: I couldn't make Rhys happy. I didn't know how to give him the kind of love his parents had shared when the only model I'd grown up with was my own parents.
Two days after the call, my things arrived. There was no note.
I didn't tell anyone.
I couldn't say it out loud.