Chapter 3 - The Bench Where He Ate Lunch
Ten minutes later we were driving across town with the shoes sitting on the floor mat between his feet. I kept glancing down at them at every red light.
Fifteen years ago, we'd been newlyweds with mismatched plates, a couch we'd found on a curb, and forty dollars of breathing room in the checking account on a good week. We'd been broke.
But I'd always believed we were broke together.
Ethan turned onto a street I recognized before he even said anything.
"This is our old neighborhood."
"Yeah."
"Why are we here?"
"Almost there."
He slowed in front of a squat brick building. The brick had been painted a dull gray at some point, and the ugly green awning I remembered was gone, but I knew those windows. The second one from the left had been our bedroom.
He parked around the corner, killed the engine, and picked up the shoes.
"Come on."
We walked half a block in the cold. He stopped next to an old bus shelter with a cracked plastic roof and a metal bench bolted to the concrete.
"This?" I said.
He sat down on the bench and set the shoes beside him. I stayed standing.
"What am I looking at, Ethan?"
"This is where I used to eat lunch."
I frowned. "Your office was twenty minutes from here. On the other side of the river."
He looked up at me.
"I wasn't working there anymore, Marnie."
For a couple of seconds I genuinely thought I'd misheard him. Traffic went by. A guy walked a dog past us. Everything looked insultingly normal.
"What?"
"Three months after the wedding, they eliminated my position. Whole department got restructured. I got a cardboard box and a handshake."
"You lost your job."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"No."
I sat down on the bench because my legs had stopped doing their job. "How long?"
He didn't answer right away.
"Almost four months."
I turned to face him. "Four months, Ethan?"
He nodded.
And my brain started pulling old mornings off the shelf, one after another. Coffee at the counter. Him standing at the mirror by the door, working the knot of his tie. Me handing him a lunch I'd packed in a paper bag. The kiss on the way out.
"Have a good day."
"You too."
Every weekday. For four months.
"You left every single morning," I said.
"Yes."
"In a suit. With a bag."
"Yes."
"Where did you go?"
"The library, mostly," he said. "The employment office downtown. Interviews when I could get them. Anywhere I thought somebody might hire me before you found out."
I looked down at the shoes again. Suddenly the deep creases in that leather meant something completely different.
"Why wouldn't you just tell me?"
"Because I was scared out of my mind." He rubbed the back of his neck. "One week we had twelve dollars to our name until payday. Twelve dollars, Marnie."
I stared at him.
He closed his eyes for a moment. "You remember when I told you the office started giving everybody free lunch in the break room?"
Of course I remembered. I'd been thrilled. One less thing to buy. I'd made some joke about corporate America finally doing something useful with its money.
"There was no free lunch, Marnie."
"Then what did you eat?"
"Whatever I could get for a dollar."
"Ethan."
"Some days nothing," he said.
I stood up. "No."
"Marnie—"
"No. Do not sit there and make that sound noble. Don't you dare turn this into some sad little love story about how you starved for us."
"I wasn't—"
"You let me sit in that apartment thinking we were both working. Thinking we were both keeping the lights on. And the whole time you were out here on a bus bench, pretending."
"I was applying everywhere. Every day. I was trying."
"That is not what I said."
He went quiet.
And another night came back to me, sharp and complete. Maybe five months into the marriage. Ethan had walked in after nine at night. I'd made chicken parmesan because it had been his favorite when we were dating, and I'd been so proud of it. He'd pushed it around the plate and barely eaten two bites.
We'd fought. I'd accused him of caring more about the office than about being home. He'd told me he'd already eaten with coworkers on the way out.
I'd gone to bed furious and stayed furious for two days.
"That dinner," I said. "The chicken parmesan."
He looked at me.
"You said you'd eaten with coworkers."
His face answered before he did.
"You hadn't eaten with anybody," I said. "Had you."
"No."
"Where were you?"
"Walking. Between a second-round interview and a temp agency across town. I didn't have bus fare that day, so I walked both ways. I got home late because it's four miles."
I turned my back to him and looked out at the street.
For fifteen years that memory had belonged to a certain version of our marriage. Now somebody had walked up and peeled the label off it.
Ethan stood slowly. "There are other things I lied about back then. Small ones."
I looked at him over my shoulder. "How many?"
He answered very quietly.
"Enough."
May you like
Then he bent down and picked up the black shoes.
"But the reason these came back to me is the part that matters most."
