“Did you think about ending your life?”
I ask it the softest way you can ask such a difficult question, and it still stirs panic in my belly while I wait for her response. Her throat moves with a swallow, and she finally lowers her gaze to the floor.
“In my first session with Dr. Abrams, she asked me that same question.”
A bear trap closes in my throat, and for a second I can’t free the words. “And what did you say?”
City lights twinkle through the window, and the only illumination comes from the lamps on the sitting room tables. In the dim light, her eyes fill with shadows and tears.
“I told her it wasn’t that I wanted to take my life,” she says. “But that I didn’t want toliveit. I’d wake up disappointed that I wasn’t still asleep and think,Oh, my God. I have to do this again.I have tobe hereagain.The only thing that got me out of bed was knowing I had to take care of my children, even though I had no desire to even take care of me. All day I had to remind myself of how much they would miss me if I was gone. Of what I would miss if I wasn’t here, even though here was the last place I wanted to be for a long time. I ached every moment of every day.”
“And when you were reminding yourself,” I say, trying to unclench my jaw, “that your children needed you, that they would miss you, did it ever occur to you once that I needed you? Did you think about what you would have missed with me? Or did I not factor in at all?”
She scans my face, searching, wary before she answers. “Dr. Abrams has this concept of radical honesty. It’s being as honest as you can possibly be. I want to do that with you, but I’m not sure that I should.”
“You don’t think I can take it?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Try.”
She pulls her legs up, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees. “I was so mad at you.”
“For Henry.” I bite the inside of my jaw, punishing myself in the most undetectable way I can think of. “For not being there. I know. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for it either.”
I wasn’t there, so I’ve built my own memories to torture myself. How many times have I envisioned Yasmen alone on the floor while I was hundreds of miles away?
She shakes her head. “I wasn’t mad at you because you weren’t there when I fell. I was mad at you for after.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard someone say once that when you try to fix people’s hurt, you’re controlling it instead of sitting with them and connecting. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I have language for it now.”
“And what is that language?”
“This is not me saying you were wrong and it was all your fault. It’s me understanding how completely incompatible we were in our grief.”
“Incompatible?”
“In every way possible. I needed to stop. To process, and maybe I stayed in that space too long. I’m sure I did, but I felt like you didn’t stop at all. It felt like you were running from everything I needed to work through. And we didn’t talk about any of it.”
“You’re right. I thought I was doing what I should. I was keeping the roof over our heads and trying to save the business. After talking with Dr. Musa, I realize I used work so I didn’t have to deal with all the loss. I wasn’t equipped for any of it, and I need to feel capable.”
“You’re the most competent man I know,” she says with a sad smile. “It must have driven you crazy not to be able to make it work. Not to be able to make me better or convince me to get up and move on.”
“It’s only recently that I realized the one I really couldn’t fix was me.”
We stare at each other for long seconds. I usually make myself look away, but tonight feels like a room with no rules. I can look as long as I want and see whatever lies behind her eyes, the mysteries I haven’t been able to decipher in a long time.
“We were so messed up,” she says, sliding to the floor, knees pulled up and her back pressed to the sofa.
“Were? I still got so much shit to work out.”
“We both do, but we’re better, right?”
“We’re divorced, Yas. Don’t see how we could get worse.”
She looks up at me, and I don’t know if I see regret, sadness, or relief. For once, I can’t read her at all. I knock back half the glass of whiskey, relishing the way it burns my throat.