DITW 12-2: Dove (Patreon)

She found Josh’s note on the kitchen counter, his gentle scrawl describing an inner turmoil across an oblong tear-off sheet pulled from the pad magnetized to the fridge. Across the top, a cartoon dog sled team raced from left to right, dog tongues happily flopping. Underneath read the pun: Things I Mush Do. And below the delightful drawing, Josh’s calligraphic confession.

Kimmy, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t even know who I am right now. I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know how to talk to you. I do know that when you talk to me, it leaves me more mixed up than when you say nothing. I need some time. I need peace. I will call you later. And I love you.

Josh

Good old kind-hearted Josh signing off with the important caveat: you’re torturing me, but I love you. So worried his honest note might harm her. Afraid, too, that his note might be considered an act of aggression. Kind Josh, a man afraid of conflict, showing his neck in case his perceived first-blow brought a return of equal or greater amplitude. Josh was good. Josh was fragile. Josh deserve care and protection.

It eluded her why it had come to this. Not Josh’s reaction. Josh’s reaction was now and always magnanimous. He gave her more respect and trust than she deserved. Why had she surrendered to temptation? How had there been such weakness in her resolve? Such useless, pointless betrayal. What had licensed such carelessness with the only person in her life she loved and trusted?

It couldn’t be answered with anything but theory and speculation.

One thing was for sure: She would not lose Josh. She would do anything to preserve him.

So with the note folded into an unreadable blank square and re-magnetized to the fridge, she dressed in a sharp suit, stopping in the hall to send Josh one more text.

Kimmy: Ok. I found your note. Call me when you can.

Then, minutes later, sitting in her car waiting for it to warm, she texted him again.

Kimmy: I’m sorry.

#

Josh didn’t call until eleven in the morning, her stomach sour and tight. When she saw his name lit on her phone she rose from her chair, held the phone to her chest, paced her office before sitting in one of the two chairs across from her desk. She ran her lower teeth across her upper lip, took a breath, then answered.

The simple sound of his voice brought her breath in sobbing chugs, and she had to steady herself with a loose fist over her heart, rubbing in circles.

“I’m sorry you didn’t find my note first. I didn’t know where to leave it.”

“It’s all right. Are you okay?”

Josh sighed. “I don’t know, Kimmy. I really don’t know. I feel like I got hit by a truck and woke up at the hospital and I don’t know who I am.”

She chewed her cheek. “It’s okay. I know who you are.” In her periphery she could see Tami watching from the lobby, pretending to work, but surveying why the new lawyer would do something so weird. She swiveled the chair away.

“Well at least someone does,” Josh said, sounding exhausted.

“Josh, I want nothing but your happiness. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t even know where to start, Kimmy. It’s like everything is wrong.”

Her lips slimmed. “Don’t say that, Josh. Everything isn’t wrong. If you tell yourself it is, then...”

“I just don’t know why you were so aggressive last night.”

“At the car? Josh, I was playing. You know I was playing.”

“It’s just so mean. So scary.”

There was silence, just the sounds of their breathing. She swiveled the chair further. “You know he wasn’t there. You know that, right? That would be crazy, Josh. Like, what were you thinking?”

“Is he there today?”

She sighed again, a burden weighing on her heart. Her stomach reminded her it was sour. “No, Josh. He’s not here today.”

“Maybe later today,” Josh said. “Maybe the next day. Some day he will. Some day soon.”

“We talked about this. I told you to let me handle it.”

She listened to him breathe a while. He said, “I need some time for myself.”

She nodded, thinking about it. “Where are you?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Are you at Meyer’s?”

“Kimmy...”

She frowned. “Steve’s? You’re at Meyer’s. You can tell me. . . . I know you’re at Meyer’s.”

“Can I please have some space?”

“I’ll give you space. Josh, I’ll give you space at home. You can come home.”

“No. No, I can’t.”

“Josh, please...”

“Kimmy, I can’t.”

“You can’t be in the apartment with me?”

“Devlin jerked off in front of you. He put his dick on your fucking leg. How can these things occur without— . . . Tell me you didn’t fuck him.”

She exhaled a burst of quiet air, her stomach flinching. The attack had come stronger than she’d expected. “Josh, come on...”

“Tell me you didn’t fuck him, Kimmy.”

The back of her neck went hot and damp. She rubbed it. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes. “Josh, I didn’t fuck him.”

“Bull shit.”

“That’s so unfair.”

“You’ve never fucked him?”

“Come on, Josh...”

Josh made a frustrated sound of pure rage she’d never heard from him, and she was sure he would explode and rifle his phone into the wall. But after a moment, he returned, angrier than ever, but restraining himself through gritted teeth. “Can’t you hear this? Can’t you hear what this sounds like? How can I come home? How can I come home, Kimmy, when I don’t even know which way is up? You’re fucking messing with my head, I know there’s so much more, but I don’t want to fucking know it, and yet every time I turn my head it’s there demanding my attention; every time I look in the mirror I see a guy who is too afraid to ask his wife something so god damn simple because he... He...”

“Because he what?”

Very quiet: “Because he fucking knows the answer already.”

“Josh— Josh, listen to me. I love you. I love you more than anything else. That is something so true, that I love to say it. I love you. You’re everything.”

“I’m everything, but...” He left the end hanging, his voice trembling with unadulterated defeat. He knew she’d cheated but he didn’t want to hear it.

With the sunny late-September city view beyond her window wall, she closed her eyes and rubbed her brow. “I’m just under so much pressure.”

“It’s not anything you can’t walk away from, Kimmy.

“I’m not walking away, Josh.”

“Of course you’re not. But you love me, right?”

“Of course I love you, Josh. Is that the measure of my love, whether you can make me quit my job?”

“Yeah, like that’s what I want.”

“You’re asking me to.”

“It’s not the job, Kimmy. You know what it is, don’t try to manipulate my words. It’s not the job I want you to quit, it’s what?”

“It’s not simple, Josh. I told you to let me handle this.”

“You’re asking me to hold more than I can hold.”

She didn’t answer, not knowing what to say, staring at her fingernails and wishing the path wasn’t so bumpy and filled with potholes. “I asked you to trust me. Don’t you trust me?”

Josh didn’t answer, just took a deep breath and let it out. Then: “Kimmy, I need some time. Don’t you see it?”

“I don’t mind, Josh. Okay. Take some time. . . . Tell me where you’re staying.”

“No.”

“Why not?” You think I’m going to come and find you?”

“Would you or wouldn’t you?”

She rolled her head around. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Why not?”

“Of course I would want to find you, but if I say that, then you won’t tell me. If I say I wouldn’t, then you’ll say it’s because I don’t care.”

“I’m keeping us both safe by not telling you.”

“Keeping us both safe from what?”

“From you, Kimmy. From you.”

The answer was ridiculous and got her scowling. “That’s terrible. Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. . . . You told me last night I’m my own worst enemy. You don’t think you rank?”

“I’m not your enemy, Josh.”

“Just pretend I don’t exist for a night. How about that? Maybe that’s what I want.”

“That’s chilling.”

“You think I’m being dramatic?”

“No, but you have to admit it’s like you want me to suffer. You’re punishing me. You’re shutting me out to hurt me.”

“I’m not doing that. Are you saying you didn’t do anything that deserves punishment?”

“Are you saying I did?” It was a reflexive response, but now she worried how his response could hurt her.

It was slow coming, but at last he said, “You tell me.”

“Josh, don’t hang up angry,” she said, seeing how this would be a point won, a place for him to step away having landed a good blow. “Don’t be alone when you’re mad at me. I can’t live like that. Tell me you love me.”

He said, “You know I love you.”

“Say it. Say it for me.”

He grumbled first before saying, “I love you. I love, I do. That’s why I’m not coming home. That’s why I want to be alone. When I’m with you, I’m lost. I’ll do whatever you say, believe whatever you say. You know how to control me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I have to go,” he said, wounded. “I’m at work.”

“Will you call me tonight?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess.”

She said, “I know you’re at Meyer’s. Just tell me you’re there.”

“Please leave it alone.”

“Okay. Call me.”

“Yeah, all right. Bye. Okay?”

“Bye, Josh. I love you.”

The pause afterward dragged on for eternity. Then: “I love you, too.”

Josh hung up, and she kept the phone pressed to her ear for a long time without moving, watching the amorphous cloud shadows cross the sunlit geometric urban sprawl. The leaves had begun to fall and she could see them collecting in the gutters and the corners in shaggy yellow bundles.

Maybe he wasn’t at Meyer’s. If he was telling the truth about where he wasn’t hiding, then where was he? She squeezed her forehead, trying to quell the rising pressure behind her eyes.

Then she was up and moving, checking her Find My Phone one more time. Still no location for her wounded husband. She opened her glass door and popped her head out to say to Tami, “Where’s Devlin today?”

Tami cocked her head, thinking. “He’s in Kingston.”

“Is he coming to Toronto?”

“I don’t know. It’s Friday. He might. He likes to go out on the weekend.”

He could be at Steve’s, but Steve wasn’t the friend Meyer was, and Steve provided no further value to Josh’s current dilemma other than as a confidante. Meyer was a much better confidante, but what if Josh wanted more than a shoulder to cry on? What if he wanted to know the truth?

Her hands began to tremble with the spinning, depthless horror that Josh could go to Devlin to untie the knot she had tied him into.