Their Joke Ended With One Word: Ex Chapter 12

Their Joke Ended With One Word: Ex Chapter 12

After that day, I didn’t leave.

Marty called me.

“Are you insane? Sign the project and come home. You planning to move out there?”

I was sitting on the hotel balcony.

The sea wind had my hair going everywhere, and I said it into the phone.

“I want to stay out here awhile and build a new line. Outdoor supply chain. The resources are here,

and you’ve been wanting to open that up for years.”

Marty went quiet for five seconds. “You’re serious?”

“When have I ever joked about business?”

There was the sound of him flipping through files, and then he said one thing.

“Fine. Stay out there. I’ve got the company covered.”

I hung up and sat on the deck chair for a long time.

Three months later, I registered a new brand in that city.

It handled supply chain integration for outdoor gear, and nothing else.

James Barrett, the impossible client, became my first customer.

The day we signed, he looked at the new brand name on the first page.

He asked me, “Hold on. Weren’t you with Meridian Supply?”

“I went out on my own.” I pushed the pen across. “I opened a separate line just for your project.

Same price, same lead time.”

He held the pen and paused.

Then he signed and pushed the contract back. “Congratulations.”

I took the contract, and out of nowhere, I thought about the day I’d gone bungee jumping because I couldn’t see a way through.

My legs had shaken that day. I’d wanted to cry and scream somebody’s name.

Now I was sitting in a conference room.

And I could barely remember that man’s full name.

For the next three years, I never went back once.

On holidays, I video–called my parents, or they came out to stay with me.

Marty checked in now and then with company updates.

Someone in the background would always ask when Ms. Hart was coming home to visit.

And I always said I would once this line was running steadily.

It kept running, and three years went by.

The fall of the third year.

My father had surgery, nothing huge and nothing small, and I booked the first flight home.

I got there in the evening.

When I pushed the door open, the first thing I saw was a pair of men’s shoes by the shoe rack.

I stopped, because they weren’t my father’s style.

Before I could ask about it,

my mother leaned out of the kitchen and tipped her chin toward the living room.

“He’s been here three hours.”

She wiped her hands, came out, and lowered her voice.

“The days your dad was in the hospital, he was the one running around. He called the doctors, handled the paperwork, brought food and soup. He put more into it than a son would have.”

“I don’t know how he tracked down the address, but every holiday he shows up and sits awhile.”

“We felt bad about it and told him to stop making the trip, and he wouldn’t listen.”

She sighed. “Your dad and I didn’t want to put that on you, so we didn’t tell you. We figured he’d give up on his own once nothing came of it.”

“And here he is, three years in, still too stubborn to go find someone else.”

I listened and didn’t say anything.

I set my bag down on the shoe rack.

There was a small sound from the living room, like somebody standing up.

I walked in.

Three years, and he hadn’t changed much.

He’d only gotten a little older.

He looked at me, and the first thing he said was, “You’re back.”

Two people who used to share a bed, and somehow they’d turned this careful and this far apart.

I looked at the keys in Ian’s hand.

The little deer charm was still on the ring.

It was the first gift I’d given him when we started dating.

It wasn’t as if none of it had been good.

It was only that in our last two years,

he hadn’t been beside me for a single holiday.

On Thanksgiving, I ate pie alone and called him to say the moon was full that night.

On Labor Day, I wandered around by myself and sent him a video saying the weather was beautiful.

And on weekends, I got so bored with him gone that I went into the office to work.

*****

Later, I understood that Ian didn’t dislike holidays. He disliked spending time with me.

Three years of sea wind, new clients, signed contracts, and mountain roads had turned me into a

woman who didn’t go soft easily.

I looked at him. “Ian, go home. My dad just had surgery and he needs quiet.”

He looked down. “I only wanted to see you.”

“You’ve seen me.” My voice was level. “Go home.”

My mother came out of the kitchen and set a plate of cut fruit on the coffee table.

“Faye, talk it out with him. The two of you almost got married.”

“That wedding never happened and there was never a real goodbye, and I think that’s what’s been stuck in you all this time.”

e passed me, he stopped.

the deer charm this whole time. I…”

of that matters anymore.” I didn’t look at him.

n a hurry back then and hadn’t had time to throw it out.

e door closed, the room went quiet.

her came out of the kitchen and sat down beside me. “He isn’t as bad as all that. It’s only

ore…”

don’t. I’m seeing someone, and if that jealous man hears you I’ll never hear the end of it.”

her blinked. “What? Who?”

find out.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “I only wanted to say that what’s done is done.

t him in the door again.”

hings ked at me for a while and nodded.

and

as

night, I lay in my old room.

ht about three years earlier, when I ran through the airport with my boarding pass and ip crouched by the gate crying hard enough to shake.

then, I’d thought I was finished.

ught that relationship would be a scar that never healed.

ree autumns later, I sat in my parents‘ living room and calmly watched the man who’d called

last–minute filler walk out the door.

35 really can get better.

aye Hart who crouched beside that gate had been gone a long time.

enough that I couldn’t remember the look on Ian’s face the night he stood in the doorway and

we’d talk tomorrow.

ise I’d been through a lot of tomorrows since then.

lot one of them had needed him to show up for it.