Flying Read online

  Good. Busy at work. Saw your name pop up and took a chance on saying hello.

  Stella typed, Glad you did.

  She meant it, she realized. Sure, things with them had been weird and awkward, and she supposed there would always be some residual emotional tie between them—how could there not be? But though she’d been angry at him for a long time, she wasn’t anymore.

  He sent her a smiley face without words. Then, a few minutes later as she toyed with fixing a shadow on a picture that the client hadn’t ordered just so she could practice and also look as if she was keeping busy, the IM window bounced again. Craig again.

  So, two chips were on the playground, and one chip punched the other one in the face.

  Stella paused in what she was doing, watching the little pencil icon blink in the box, telling her Craig was still typing. It was a joke. He’d always been able to make her laugh.

  I’m NACHO friend! the chip said.

  Stella burst into stifled laughter, but he wasn’t finished.

  That’s not fair, the other chip cried. Can’t we TACO ‘bout it?

  Funny, she typed.

  Glad we had the chance to chat. Got to go, talk to you another time?

  Yes, she answered, but he’d already signed off.

  The joke kept making her laugh, so much that she sent it to Matthew. It was his night to have the girls, so she didn’t expect an answer until after they went to bed, but when hours passed and she was getting ready for bed herself, he still hadn’t replied.

  “I hate it when you don’t answer me,” Stella said aloud to her phone.

  Her house was silent. Tristan had gone to his dad’s house tonight because he didn’t have school the next day and Jeff had promised to take him for his driver’s license, finally. She’d thought about asking them to wait for her. It seemed like something they should do together, something she wanted to be a part of, anyway. But they weren’t a family anymore, and Tristan had been so excited at the prospect of getting his license that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to be so selfish as to deny him that just because she wanted to go see Matthew.

  And she would see him, tomorrow afternoon. Heat washed over her, as it always did. In her bed, Stella stretched out, almost too wired for sleep. She didn’t have to get up superearly, and it wasn’t even late.

  The house was too quiet.

  She sat up, considering pulling out her book to read a chapter. Or going downstairs to her computer and surfing the internet for a while. Maybe even watching a movie. But all of that stuff smacked of effort, and though she wasn’t quite tired enough for sleep, she wasn’t awake enough for any of that other stuff.

  She was lonely, Stella thought. And bored. With a frown, she burrowed into her pillows and forced her eyes to close. Other nights she’d have been yawning her way through a conversation with Matthew that stretched on too late, wrecking her for the morning. But on the night she could’ve easily spent an hour chatting with him, he was nowhere to be found.

  His girls were in bed by now, tucked into the cute twin beds in the room he hadn’t had to tell her Caroline had helped decorate. His apartment was only two bedrooms, so they shared a room while in their mother’s house they each had their own bedrooms. The house he’d shared with her. Stella hadn’t met Matthew’s daughters or his ex-wife yet, but she’d seen plenty of pictures on his phone. She pictured the house they’d shared in the suburbs pretty much the way Caroline looked—sort of bland, everything matching. Decorative balls on the coffee tables. That sort of thing. Matthew’s apartment, in comparison, was still so bare of anything but the most basic of furniture and decor that if Stella hadn’t known he’d lived there for almost two years, she’d have thought he’d just moved in.

  She checked her phone, but there was no message. She’d see him tomorrow, she reminded herself. There’d be time enough for conversation then. If they bothered to talk, she thought with a small smile, already imagining all the ways they’d use their mouths for other things.

  And then, just before she drifted into sleep, came the ping.

  GNS.

  GNM, she replied and got no reply, but this time it didn’t bother her as much because a good-night from him was what she’d been waiting for. Now she could sleep. Now she could dream.

  But she didn’t dream of him.

  * * *

  “Maybe you’d just be happier if I moved out.” This is Jeff, mouth twisted. Arms crossed. He looks mad enough to punch a hole in the wall, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He has before.

  They’ve been arguing about laundry. Something stupid. He tossed his filthy clothes into the basket without paying attention, ruining the clean clothes Stella hasn’t mustered the energy to put away.

  “Yes. That’s what I want.” She imagined herself shouting the words, but they whisper out. Defeated. She looks him in the eye when she answers, though. “Yes. Go. Please.”

  “Why? You have someone lined up to take my place already?”

  Guilt should stab her, but she refuses to let it. Stella lifts her chin. “No. That’s not what this is about.”

  She could ask the same of him, after all. She knows that when he stays out late and comes home smelling of smoke and perfume, it’s very likely her husband has been fooling around, if not outright fucking other women. It’s been months since they had sex, and the last time was horrific. Jeff turned from her scars and lost his erection, and Stella stumbled to the bathroom to dry-heave with grief.

  “Then what?” he demands.

  “I don’t love you anymore.” There. She’s said it out loud, what she’s been thinking for close to a year. “I don’t want to be married to you. I want you to move out. I want a divorce.”

  The truth of what her husband feels for her is evident in the way he doesn’t sag or protest or try to change her mind. Jeff only nods. Once, sharply. They stare at each other across the laundry, and Stella knows she will never be able to forget this moment.

  And later, weeks later, when she is tired and sad and the house is quiet because Jeff has taken Tristan for the night, she stumbles down the hall and sits outside the closed bedroom door she’s been unable to open. She puts her hand on the knob but does not turn it. And then she dials Craig, whispering fiercely for him to meet her somewhere. Anywhere. Just meet her so they can talk.

  The rain started before she got in the car, and it makes her late. It’s normal rain, not icy, nothing that needs anything more than normal precaution, but in this state of mind, she can’t deal with it. She pulls into the parking lot of the diner where they agreed to meet twenty minutes later than she said she’d be, expecting him not to be there.

  But he’s there.

  And instead of eggs and hash browns, which is what she thought she wanted, even instead of pie and coffee, Stella sits in the front seat of Craig’s car and shakes. And shakes. And shakes.

  “I lost him,” she says over and over again, unable to explain that she doesn’t mean Jeff.

  She means her boy.

  Her Gage. Her firstborn, her mini-me. She lost him, and nothing that has come after could possibly compare to this pain she can’t bring herself to share.

  There aren’t even any tears. Just dry, staring eyes and chattering teeth. Her hair is wet and sticks to her face. The rain falls outside, heavier. Shielding them. Craig could reach for her over the center console, but he doesn’t, and Stella’s not sure if she’s grateful or angry that he doesn’t offer her that comfort.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he tells her finally, when she falls silent.

  Blinking, Stella can finally focus on him. “You don’t have to say anything, Craig. Just kiss me. Please.”

  But when she leans to kiss him, he recoils. Just enough to wound her. Just enough to sting.

  “Look. Stella. You know I like yo