Cry Like A Girl

Chapter 15

If their cable plan gave them two hundred channels, Henry had just run through them twice. Pushing the up button every two seconds hardly offered a chance to see what was on, but then, he didn't really care. The television could have shown horizontal lines accompanied by white noise and he wouldn't have noticed the difference.

Wednesday. Susan's day off. He gave a moment's thought as to where she might be in the middle of the day before his thoughts went back to Camille. He turned his phone to face him. Nothing, but he already knew that. Each time he looked at the phone without seeing a call or text from her, he swore that—Evan or no Evan—one more unanswered call and he was going to her house to find out what was wrong.

Even with Evan returning early, Camille would have found a way to get a hold of him by now. She had to know how worried he was by the number of unanswered calls he'd made. She also had to know she was fucking with him the same way Susan was fucking with him.

Was that their intention? Did all women mess with a man's head until they turned him inside out?

He craned his neck when he heard a car pull into the driveway.

Susan.

As much as he didn't want to deal with another installment of her recent foul mood, even small talk would be a welcome change to sitting alone with his silent phone.

The car door closed. Four steps to the porch, he counted each one. He worked his jaw back and forth in an attempt to loosen his facial muscles and smiled when the door opened.

"How was your day?" he asked even before the door closed behind her.

"What are you doing home?"

There was a softness to her voice. Wherever she had spent the day, it seemed to do her good. "It's been pretty intense at the factory. Just had to get away for a while. Thought I'd work from home."

Susan quirked one side of her face. "Getting much done in front of the TV?"

The smile stretched across her face told him she was teasing. He hadn't been expecting congeniality from her. Questions, yes. Indifference, most likely. Insinuations, probably. But not good spirits. As he approached her for a hug, he re-adjusted his thinking in order to preserve her mood.

He took her by the shoulders and leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek, not expecting her to turn toward him, his lips meeting hers. It was a quick peck, the type of kiss a brother might place on his sister's cheek, but it was more than they had shared in some time. He could feel the softness of her lips even after she turned away to hang her keys.

"What did you do today?" They were the same five words he said most days when he walked through the door after work. The difference was, today he was truly interested in her answer. Whatever transformed her mood from what it had been over the last week to what he was seeing in front of him was worth buying by the gross.

"I spent the day with Roz."

He couldn't be sure that Susan's friend was the reason for the change in mood, but he felt as though he owed her a debt of gratitude just the same. He had bigger issues than his wife's bruised feelings and if this woman was responsible for fixing her damaged self-esteem, he liked her without even knowing her. "You'll have to bring her around one of these days. It'd be nice to put a face with the name."

Susan offered a slight nod accompanied by a smile as she turned and headed into the kitchen. "Sloppy Joes for dinner?" she asked.

"Sure." He glanced at his phone once more before sliding it into his pocket and following her. Still a bit confused by her sudden shift in attitude, he asked, "So, what did you and Roz do today?"

Susan looked straight ahead into the front of a cabinet door, her back to him. He noted the pause before her reply. "We hiked."

He had never known his wife to hike in the past, but he didn't want to ask too many questions and risk her pleasant mood. He said, "It was a nice day for it," and let the subject go.

Henry tried his best to keep his attention on Susan and the small talk surrounding dinner. He offered input when she spoke of readying the garden for winter, and her feeling that this school year would be the last for the library, and his thoughts on trying a new fertility specialist. Each time he thought she had run out of things to talk about, she moved on to a new subject with barely a pause between topics.

Even with her more pleasant, positive mood, it didn't escape him that Camille's silence picked up exactly where Susan's left off. Coincidence? Or had he unknowingly become the victim in a game?

* *

She had never understood the expression "have a song in your heart" until today. Even while she stood at the foot of the bed folding laundry, a task she despised, she had a song in her heart. Her breaths were light, her mind clear, and her troubles gone. She had experienced almost every emotion known to man earlier, on the bridge, and had walked away with a new soul. There was no other way to describe the way she felt. For the first time in her life, she was able to let go of everything, every worry, every trouble, every tear in her heart and truly live in the moment. She let go of the pain and grasped what was important. Being. Simply being. Everything else was irrelevant. The moment the train went by was scary, exhilarating, surreal, and invigorating all at the same time, but in that moment, she found perspective. It was as close to an out-of-body experience as she had ever known.

She hated for it to end. She wondered if she could go back and live it again, just as she had earlier, or if the newness expired after the first experience.

Henry appeared in the doorway, looked over the stacks of folded clothes, and said, "Can I give you a hand?"

Susan looked at him. Twice. She knew she had heard him correctly, but the words took a moment to process. "Thanks, but I'm almost through here. You ready for bed?"

"Whenever you're done. No rush." He watched her fold the last items in the basket and began handing her stacks as she put them into drawers.

"I was thinking, if you're not too tired..." she cast a glance over her shoulder and let her words trail off.

Henry's head bobbed in acceptance of her unspoken offer, but his open mouth was empty of words.

"Okay, I'm going to grab a quick shower. Don't fall asleep on me," she teased, as she closed the last dresser drawer and disappeared into the bathroom.

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