The First Husband

“Hi, baby girl . . .” he said.

Then he took a seat next to me on the couch, stretching his arms behind his head. This close, Nick looked even more beat: his eyes red and watery from the long shoot, and from the contact lenses he’d recently begun to wear in place of the reliable wire-rimmed glasses he’d had as long as I’d known him.

I decided against giving him grief for the lenses, decided, also, against telling him about the phone call from our travel agent. We were supposed to go to London in December. I had rented a tiny house in Battersea that we could actually afford to live in while Nick worked on a project there. I could barely wait and already found myself dreaming of having an extended period of time to visit my favorite parts of one of my favorite cities: going to the theater and hiding out in ancient flea markets, spending too much time in bookshops and no time at all walking near the Tower of London. The agent had called requesting the balance on the house. I needed to know if shooting was still on schedule in vampire land, so that I could feel safe giving it to her. But that was going to have to wait.

“What are you watching?” he asked.

“Was watching, it’s over now.” I clicked the television off, like proof. “Just a movie. Roman Holiday . . .”

“We own that movie? I haven’t seen it forever,” he said. “I’ve always thought it was a little overrated.”

I’d never told Nick about Roman Holiday, not the full story—had never told anyone but my best friend, Jordan. I knew Nick would tell me I was crazy. Though I couldn’t hold that against him. I’d think I was crazy too.

“How did last night turn out?” I asked instead.

He shook his head in a way that said, let’s not even go there.

Then he proceeded to go there, telling me about a complicated electrical problem at the bookstore in Pasadena they had rented to film the movie’s climatic scene. It was important that that went well. It hadn’t.

When he was done, he cast his eyes down, almost closing them. “So,” he said. “Annabelle Adams . . .”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Nick never called me by my full name. He called me Annie—or Adams if we were arguing about something. Adams also if he was in the mood to be particularly sweet, loving. A confusing business, really, when I thought too much about it: Adams coming up only at our best and worst moments.

“Yes, Nicholas Campbell . . .” I said, jokingly.

Then I reached over and touched the side of his face. He leaned into it, catching m

y hand there, between his cheek and his shoulder.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he said. “I’ve needed to talk to you about it, but you’ve been away and I haven’t been sure exactly how . . .”

“Okay . . .”

While I’d been in Punta Cana the week before, I’d seen a couples therapist on a local morning show explain how it was aggressive behavior for a woman to look right at her husband or boyfriend when he was trying to talk about something important—that it made men think of war instead of love. Weird tip. But there I was, following the advice the best I could anyway: pulling my knees under my large top and averting my gaze, just as instructed. At least I wasn’t looking right at him when he continued to speak.

“The thing is,” he said, “my therapist says we may need a break.”

“A break from what?” I said.

This was what I said. Like an utter and complete moron. A break from what—what did I think? But this was how incredibly far-fetched the idea of us taking a break from each other was to me, at that moment.

“She says I need to be on my own for a while,” he said. “Without you.”

I turned to look at him. There are words you can never take back. Had I just heard them? Five years. We had been together for five years. Weren’t there different rules for saying them after so long? Didn’t everyone have to be fully dressed?

“Why?” I asked.

“She says that I love you,” he said, “but also that I’m trying to love you. That I have to stop putting everyone else first.”

I watched Mila’s face. Am I missing something? I asked her silently.

She looked back at me: I think I want a nap.

Meanwhile, Nick was still talking, but it was like someone dropped a ball in my throat. And I couldn’t swallow it and listen at the same time. Instead, I looked around our home—the one I had designed, furnished, did 95 percent of the work to keep up. I wasn’t very good at making a home, maybe. Okay: definitely, maybe. I wasn’t home enough to be good at it (as evidenced by my suitcase still packed and ready by the front door). But regardless, if Nick was naming that as the game, hadn’t I been the one who’d always done most of the first-putting?

“She says I need to figure out what I need for me.”

She says. He kept saying that. She says. Three hundred times now, if I was counting correctly. Probably because he knew that if he took the she says out, his words sounded harsher. This was my first clear thought. My second was sadder. What had I done to make him want to leave?