Chapter 8: The Reason for the Doors

I crossed the street with my bag on my shoulder and my sweater on inside out.

Elliot did not move.

He looked at my face, and at my mouth, and then he looked at the sidewalk.

"You didn't go home," I said.

"I went home. I came back." His voice was level.

"I wanted to be here when you came out. I didn't mean to watch the door."

"But you did."

"Yes."

"Say it, then. Go on. You've had all night to think of something."

I wanted him to shout.

I wanted him to say I was his wife and I had no right.

Then I could say what I had wanted to say for three years.

He did not shout.

He took a long breath through his nose, and he said, "I earned that."

"What?"

"This. All of it." He pushed one hand through his hair, and I saw that his fingers were shaking.

"I put you in a house and shut a door and left you there.

"I'm not going to stand on a sidewalk and tell you who you can be with."

"You're standing on a sidewalk watching me."

"I know." He almost smiled. "I'm not good at this."

I stared at him.

I had spent three years learning every shape of his silence, and I had never seen this one.

It was not coldness.

It was a man holding himself still so he would not break something.

"Is he good to you?" Elliot said.

I had not expected it.

"Yes."

"Good." He nodded once. "I mean it. Good."

"Then why do you look like someone hit you?"

"Because he's allowed to touch you and I'm not." He said it quietly, to the pavement.

"That's the only thing I'm sorry about that I can't fix by being sorry."

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