“You look terrible,” he said, setting a cup on my desk.
“Thanks.”
“Everything all right at home?”
The question was so casually phrased that I didn't think anything of it. His expression was sympathetic, even concerned. I'd known him long enough to trust the way his face looked when he was worried.
“Natalie and I are having a problem,” I said.
“What kind?”
“The kind I don't know how to explain.”
Ryan sat in the visitor's chair. “Try me.”
I looked at him, trying to decide where to begin. We had built Oak & Stone together, but we'd never discussed our marriages in much detail. Ryan was divorced. He spoke about his ex-wife, Caroline, rarely and always with a faintly injured air. Still, he was my best friend. If there was one person outside our family who should have been safe to talk to, it was him.
“She left last night. Says she wants eleven days to figure out how she feels about us.”
His hand paused on the coffee cup. It was a tiny movement, scarcely noticeable. “Eleven days?”
“Yeah.”
“That's oddly specific.”
“I thought so.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No. She said she needed space.”
Ryan looked toward the window. “Maybe giving her that is the best move.”
“That's not the whole story.”
He looked back. “Okay.”
I swallowed. “She wants to date other people while she's gone.”
Ryan breathed out slowly. “Wow.”
“That's one word for it.”
“Listen, Dan. I'm not saying it's right. But people get confused. Sometimes pressure makes them do things that don't mean what we think they mean.”
“I was very clear that if she goes through with it, I'm done.”
He leaned back. “You don't want to make permanent decisions in the middle of a crisis.”
“That's what she said.”
“Maybe because it's good advice.”
At the time, I interpreted his response as an attempt to keep me from blowing up my life. Only later did I understand that he was testing how firmly I meant what I'd said. He asked whether Natalie had taken her wedding ring, whether I'd called her, whether I thought she'd return early. I answered because I had no reason not to. When Ryan left, he touched my shoulder and told me to call if I needed anything.
For the next few hours, I was actually grateful he'd come.
The second night was worse than the first because there was no shock left to protect me. Our bedroom held an entire inventory of absences: the brush on her side of the dresser, the pale indentation her pillow left against the headboard, the jewelry dish that still contained a pair of silver earrings she'd forgotten. Her robe hung behind the bathroom door. I could smell her shampoo when I stepped into the shower. I hated how familiar everything was, and I hated the thought of changing any of it.