It’s Nick.
I want to tell him to go away, but even more, I want to get off the floor. “Yes. Come in.”
He opens the door and catches me lying there with my red eyes and wet face. “Rosie,” he murmurs.
The tears stream down my face. “Nick…”
He bends down beside me, and very, very gently, he lifts me off the floor. He lowers me down on the bed, then he crawls into the bed beside me. He brushes a wet strand of hair from my face as he looks into my eyes. And then, very slowly and gently, he dips his lips onto mine.
We make love for the first time in almost a year. I fall asleep curled up in Nick’s arms.
Chapter 31
I wake up in the middle of the night and Nick’s side of the bed is empty.
I rub my eyes until the clock by our bed comes into focus. It’s after three in the morning. I listen for the sound of running water coming from the bathroom but I hear nothing. The house is silent.
“Nick?” I call out.
No answer.
My stomach churns. I thought Nick and I reconnected last night, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was a disappointment to him and made him realize he wanted that other woman more. Maybe that’s where he is right now. With her.
Before I can stop myself, I fumble around in the drawer next to my bed, feeling around for the binoculars. My fingers close around the cool metal and I pull them out. I’m close enough to the window that I have a good view of the motel. Of Christina’s room.
I focus the binoculars on the room where I saw Nick kissing that woman earlier tonight. But even with the lenses, I can’t see a thing. The room is dark.
Damn.
I sit up in bed, propping myself up against the pillows, trying to get a better look. And that’s when I see some movement along the back of the motel. Near the dumpster.
It’s Nick.
What’s he doing over there?
I focus in the best I can on his face. He’s not smiling. He dumps a black trash bag in the dumpster, then he wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He takes a step back, staring at the dumpster. He wipes his hands on his jeans, then starts back to our house.
What the hell was he doing there at three in the morning?
When Nick disappears from my view, I yank the drawer open and throw the binoculars inside before he can see them. My heart is pounding as his footsteps grow louder on the stairs outside the door. A few moments later, Nick’s silhouette appears in the doorway.
The first thing he does is go to the bathroom. He washes his hands for at least two minutes. There’s a rule that you’re supposed to sing the happy birthday song to know how long to wash, but he washes far longer than that. He finally comes out of the bathroom, strips off his jeans and T-shirt, and quietly slips onto the mattress beside me, trying hard not to wake me.
Too bad I’m already wide awake.
“Nick?” I whisper.
I hear him inhale sharply beside me. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were awake.”
I wait for him to explain where he just was. When he says nothing, I say, “Where did you go?”
“I just…” He shifts on the mattress next to me. “I needed some fresh air.”
He lied to me. He wasn’t just getting some fresh air. He was doing something by the motel. But why would he lie?
Nick reaches over and wraps his arm around me. He tugs my body close to his. “I’m sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep.”
I close my eyes but it takes a long time to go back to sleep.
_____
When Nick helps me into my wheelchair the next morning, I hear a noise coming from outside the window. I almost reach for my binoculars, but I can’t do that with Nick here. Anyway, I don’t need my binoculars to see what the noise is. There’s a garbage truck right outside the window.
I keep my eyes pinned on the garbage truck. It goes around the side of the motel. I watch as the contents of the garbage bin are emptied into the truck. In another couple of hours, everything in the bin will be at the local dump.
“I forgot today is garbage day,” I say.
Nick raises his eyebrows at me. “Yeah, it’s always Monday. I guess it’s been a while since you… Anyway, yes. The garbage truck is always here bright and early Monday morning.”
And whatever he put in that dumpster at three in the morning is now gone. He made sure of that.
Instead of the usual peck on the forehead before he leaves, Nick leans in to give me a luxurious kiss on the lips. Despite everything, I feel a stirring of attraction for him. Maybe I’m not entirely dead inside. Ironically, maybe him kissing another woman was what we needed to give our marriage a shot in the arm.