The sensation is similar now; the appeal of spring rolls is laughable because the day before yesterday I had a husband and today my husband doesn’t exist.
“Skye,” Andie pleads. “You need to eat.”
“I can’t eat right now. I need to talk to Dr. Salam.”
Andie orders Thai anyway, and I type out a text to Dr. Salam telling her I need to talk. I know she’s left the office for the day, but she’s usually responsive via text. She replies several minutes later.
Emergency?
Yes, I text back. Please.
She responds that she’ll be home in twenty minutes and can do a Skype call then.
“I’m Skyping with Dr. Salam in my room,” I tell Andie, who is foraging in the fridge.
“Good.” She digs out carrots and hummus. “That will be good. I’m starving. Food is on its way. I’ll save you some. I really think you should eat, Skye.”
“I’ll try in a bit.”
“And I’m gonna call the locksmith now, too. I almost forgot we need to do that.”
“Right.” Right. We need to call the locksmith to come change the locks to my apartment so that my husband of two weeks can’t get back in, lest he attempt to steal any more of my property for his （other） wife and his three children, none of whom I knew existed two days ago.
“Here’s my credit card.” I place it on the kitchen counter. “If the locksmith comes while I’m still on the phone.”
When Dr. Salam’s familiar face appears on my laptop screen twenty minutes later, I break down again.
Something about the smoothness of her skin—the color of a coffee milkshake—always puts me at deep ease. Dr. Salam has no lines on her face except two creases running parallel between her brows that sharpen when she’s concerned. I think about her clearing space in her evening schedule—a dinner she planned to cook for her husband, or emails she needed to answer—to make time for me. Dr. Salam is there for me the way Andie is, the way I’d thought Burke was, the way only a few precious people in life end up being. My heart trembles.
“Talk to me, Skye.” Dr. Salam’s voice is clear. “Tell me what happened.”
I crack open. I’m a flash flood tearing down a wall, a roaring river of rage and desolation and terror. Dr. Salam absorbs my pain like a sponge. I watch as she glances sideways and wrings it out, ridding herself of any lingering subjectivity so that she can return to the session even-keeled and ready to help. She is good at what she does. Unlike Andie, Dr. Salam isn’t allowed to scream and object on my behalf; she is my therapist, not my friend.
But today a horrified expression lingers in Dr. Salam’s dark eyes. I’ve never seen her look so affected—not even when I told her the truth about Max LaPointe.
“I’m so sorry, Skye,” she says when she finally speaks. “That is some of the more abominable behavior I’ve heard of. And I’ve heard a lot.”
I say nothing.
“I want you to remember that none of this has anything to do with you. Burke was going to do what he was going to do, and it was never about you. It’s about him. He could have done this to anyone. I’m so sorry you got put in this unlucky position. It really isn’t fair.”
“I can’t help but know it’s me, though. A stronger, smarter person wouldn’t have let this happen to her. In retrospect I barely knew him when we got engaged. There were”—I exhale—“there were red flags. But I made the choice to trust him because I so badly wanted to believe that what we had was real.”
“Being vulnerable isn’t a weakness, Skye. On the contrary, it’s bravery. ‘Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness.’ Brené Brown said that.”
A hot tear rolls down my cheek. “I don’t know what to do.”
Dr. Salam sighs. “We’re going to take it one step at a time. First step is to eat some dinner. Andie is right that you need to put food in your stomach. Then try to get some sleep, and come to the office tomorrow morning. My first appointment isn’t until nine-thirty. Why don’t you come at eight?”
“I will.” I nod, my voice squeaky. “Thank you.”
I click the laptop shut. There’s a roiling in my gut, and I’m suddenly ravenous. I head toward the bedroom door to go make myself a plate of Thai, and that’s when I notice the yellow Post-it note on the nightstand, tucked under the lamp. I instantly recognize Burke’s familiar scribble.
I’m so sorry, Skye. I wish I could explain, but I can’t. I love you.—B
Burke’s words burn the space behind my sternum, blistering my cracked-open heart. My head fogs with confusion and fresh anger and shameful hope. I read the note again, tracing my fingers over the ink, lost in my mind.
“Skye!” Andie calls from the other room. “Are you off the phone?”
I love you.
He loves me. After everything that happened, why would he say that if he didn’t mean it?
My hands quiver as I slide the Post-it underneath a stack of books on the nightstand. I know that if Andie finds it, she’ll rip it to shreds, and I can’t let that happen. It’s all I have left of my husband.
Chapter Thirty
Burke
OCTOBER 2019—ONE DAY WITHOUT SKYE
I don’t wait until the morning to leave West Eleventh Street. The idea of sleeping in the bed without Skye is too depressing, and besides, she wants me out.
It doesn’t take me long to pack up the few items in the apartment that are mine—clothes, toiletries, computer, a few books. Mostly everything was Skye’s to begin with, and the place hardly looks any different by the time I zip my duffel.
A stack of Post-it notes sits on Skye’s desk, and I peel one from the top. I want to leave her with a few words—I can’t not leave her with something. I try not to think about the ramifications of what’s happening as I leave the apartment.
I take the subway to Grand Central, where I catch the train to New Haven. It’s surprisingly full, and I wonder why anyone else might be journeying from Manhattan to New Haven on Monday afternoon. A lot of crazy people are in this world, but I wonder if anyone is carrying as outrageous a secret as I am.
I check my texts with the frequency of a teenage girl, and for the first time I understand why Maggie is constantly glued to her phone. But Skye doesn’t text or call. No one does.
I imagine Skye arriving home and finding my note. I imagine her lighting it on fire.
The weather has turned, and it’s raining by the time my train rolls into the station around a quarter of six. I can’t bear the thought of asking Heather for a pickup; instead I spring for a cab with the little cash I have left. Rain smacks and streaks the windows of the taxi as it heads to the east side of town, toward the white-shingled split-level where I raised my children.
It’s a complicated feeling, being back here. So much has changed inside me since I left. Nothing changed for twenty-five years, and now everything is different because I am. I wonder if this is how Garrett and Hope and Maggie feel when they come home after months of being away at school or in their new adult lives, after all that time evolving and being shaped by the complexities of the world. It’s a strange, sad thing, after all that, to come back home and see the physical sameness of it. The steady constant of the place you left.