Don't Wait for the Boat, Go Alone Toward Mountains and Seas

On my due date, the husband who'd promised to drive me to the hospital took a detour to a bar to celebrate his childhood sweetheart's birthday.

The pain in my belly was unbearable. I kept asking when he'd get there.

He kept saying soon, soon.

But by the time my water broke and I forced myself to dial 911, the voice that came through was still his, impatient.

"Lauren Harding, I told you I'd come get you soon. Can't you have a little patience?"

"You're impossible all day long, always nitpicking."

"You may be pregnant, but can't you consider my feelings for once?"

Then the line went dead with a string of beeps.

Winston Gilbert didn't come home that night.

The first call I got the next morning was him telling me to go bail him out of the police station.

I picked up the divorce papers on my way out.

Eudora Simmons was sniffling as she explained. "Please don't be angry. It was my birthday at the club and someone was giving me trouble, so Winston stepped in to teach him a lesson for me."

Winston bowed his head too, his voice gentle as he looked at me.

"Lauren, whatever it is, let's talk about it at home. Don't make a scene here, all right?"

Everyone was watching my pale face. None of them expected me to slap the divorce papers across Winston's cheek.

"Fine. You two go get married."

"Sign the divorce papers, and stop clinging to me after this."

The bitter wind stirred my hair. I lowered my head. The baby I'd carried for ten months had already suffocated and died because I wasn't brought to the hospital in time.

And this was, I'd lost count, how many times Winston and I had fought because of Eudora.

Ever since this ex-girlfriend of his came back from abroad, I could never keep my emotions in check, again and again and again.

Even though today was my twenty-sixth birthday.

My phone rang. A text from Winston, apologizing, telling me not to be angry, saying he knew he'd broken his promise last night, that it was my birthday today, but that he'd still prepared a gift for me.

If this had been before, a line like that would have kept me happy for a long time.

Because before, this was always how our fights went.

He'd give me a gift or a bit of attention, coax me a little, and I'd be delighted, forget how upset I'd been, and go right back to loving him with everything I had.

Only this time...

I looked at the chat log, at Winston apologizing for the who-knows-how-manyth time because of Eudora.

Something in me eased. No anger. No grievance, no hurt anymore.

Instead there was that feeling of already knowing the ending, like a spoiler.

See. I knew exactly what he'd say next.

Every apology of his was always because of Eudora too.

The strange thing was, this time, after it all, I really wasn't sad at all.

I bought myself a hot drink.

And walked the road home alone.

The bitterness of this love, I'd truly swallowed too much of it.

It was past two in the morning when Winston came home, bailed out by someone, and started knocking.

Outside the door he shouted over and over that he wouldn't divorce, even smashed the glass, and then forced his way in carrying that gardenia perfume that only ever came off Eudora.

"Lauren, I'm sorry. This time it really was my fault. Please forgive me." His body, reeking of liquor, reached for me, and he tried to pull me into his arms.

He had no idea that the heavy perfume on him only made me sick to my stomach.

I caught those groping hands of his and threatened to call the police.

The moment he felt me refuse him, his attitude soured.

Winston's brows drew together again.

"Lauren, what exactly are you trying to say?"

"I know pregnancy is hard, that your moods swing, and I can understand that. But you can't let a little thing, a few words, turn you paranoid like this. It isn't good for you, and it isn't good for the baby."

The baby.

Those two words were like a thin needle, sinking straight into my heart.

Ten months ago, the day I learned I was pregnant, I could hardly contain my excitement. Every single day after that, I waited so carefully for this new life to be born.

But once Winston's mind was entirely on his ex-girlfriend.

His replies grew fewer, his messages shorter.

Until the day I told him I was pregnant, and I noticed he became happy, even answered me more than usual.

And yet something in me turned uneasy.

I clung to him, asking again and again whether he loved me.

He never said the word "love," but he did answer gently enough, "I'll come home early."

Until this time, my due date, when Winston lied and told me he was coming to pick me up.

And instead let me endure over an hour of pain, until my water broke and the baby, not saved in time, suffocated and died.

Only then did I understand.

From beginning to end, he had never held me in his heart.

Still, it was fine. It was over.

I couldn't love him anymore.

Seeing me stay silent, he must have thought I'd softened. He came over to me, bent down, and tried to hold me.

"All right, stop overthinking it. I had Daisy James make you some soup. Drink a little and get some rest, and tomorrow's the weekend, I'll take you for another checkup and we'll see"

"Our baby is already dead."

I said it very quietly, looking at him with no expression at all.

He went rigid all over.

His arms still held that half-embrace, frozen in midair.

The living room was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the clock on the wall.

One tick, two, three.

Then he straightened, stared down at my belly, and for the longest time didn't understand.

"You're saying, the baby's gone?"

I lifted my head, met his eyes, and said it word by word:

"I'm saying, the baby's gone."

"After I sent you that voice message and you didn't answer, I called for an ambulance. By the time it came, the baby was already gone."

Winston's face went white, bit by bit.

Five years I'd known him, and I'd almost never seen him lose his composure.

In front of everyone he was always at ease, his moods as steady as a precision instrument.

But in this moment, that instrument broke down.

"Lauren, I'm sorry.."

His eyes suddenly went red. "Yesterday was Eudora's birthday too, she kept telling me to come over and have a drink with her"

"Don't say any more."

I shook his hand off, calmly.

He had never been this low before me.

In the past, when we quarreled now and then, the most he ever did was go cold and silent and wait for me to be the one to back down.

In this moment, I suddenly laughed. "Winston, so it turns out you can hurt too? So it turns out your eyes can go red too? So it turns out you're capable of losing your composure too? And here I always thought you could only ever not care where I was concerned."

Winston went blank for a second, then dropped to his knees on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Lauren, I never thought"

Right as Winston was apologizing with everything he had, the phone in his pocket rang.

He froze, glanced at the name on the screen, hesitated a long while, told me he was sorry, then turned and walked out of the room to answer it outside the door.

I could more or less guess who, at three in the morning, could matter this much to him.

He went outside to take the call, and faintly, from inside, I heard him soothing a crying girl, murmuring gently into the phone every so often, tender and sweet, exactly like when he and I had first fallen in love.

I let the tears fall and tried not to think about any of it anymore.

I didn't go back to the apartment either. I moved to a hotel nearby.

I called my best friend. I wanted to come stay with her for a while.

She said yes right away, happy to have me.

As for everything with Winston, I understood now that the two of us were simply wrong for each other.

I planned to use these days to get someone over to the rental soon and move all my things out.

My friend knew I was nursing a broken heart. She'd always sworn off marriage herself, but this week she took time off just to drag me around amusement parks for days on end.

She knew me.

Five years of loving him. Somewhere underneath it all, I still couldn't quite let go.

So the two of us tried all kinds of things I'd never done before. Bungee jumping, skiing, skydiving.

We didn't stop until we were worn out, and even then it wasn't enough. Only then did we head back to her cozy little rental.

But I never expected that when we reached the bottom of the building, Winston would be there, quietly waiting for us.

For once, he spoke up first. "Lauren, these few days I've been gone, you seem like you've been in a good mood."

"Yeah. You're busy, I'm busy."

He was reaching for something to talk about, but I didn't feel like saying much.

"I'm sorry. I neglected you on your birthday."

Out of nowhere, he was apologizing again.

Before, when he'd been off with Eudora, I would have been sick with worry. But now I didn't care, and here he was, wanting to...

It was almost funny, really.

"There's no need to apologize to me. We really aren't right for each other, so if it's over, it's over." I answered him half-heartedly, trying to end the conversation.

He kept hesitating.

Finally I gave Winston a polite little nod. When he saw I wasn't flying into a rage, he looked a bit let down.

"Right, there's one more thing I wanted to tell you."

"I think this relationship of ours..."

Before I could finish, Winston cut in, as if he'd seen it coming. "Lauren, I've already given ground."

He saw my face go stony, and still he kept his tone low. "I really am sorry. It was my fault. So don't..."

I broke his little fantasy without any mercy. "We really aren't right for each other."

"And I'd hope you'd consider my feelings too. That birthday wasn't the first time. But it'll be the last."

"You could go back and read all those apologies you sent me on your phone. There are so many, so many of them. Honestly, so many that... I'm just so, so tired."

Winston was silent for a long time.

He couldn't bring himself to look me in the eye. His voice came out weak. "I'm sorry, Lauren. Please, don't be angry anymore..."

I understood. He was still running from it.

He'd realized something had gone wrong between us.

But the method he'd chosen was to make me apologize until I couldn't stand it anymore.

It wasn't until the door slammed shut with a bang that I remembered: this time, I was the one who'd slammed it.

For me, it was a release.

Ending an entanglement that had gone on too long was my honest confession to the deepest part of my own heart.

I'd made up my mind to divorce long ago, so I'd already found a place online.

Dragging two suitcases, I went out to the curb to catch a cab.

I'd just gotten into the taxi when I heard my phone ringing in my pocket.

"Even if we've broken up, can't we at least still be friends?" He gave a bitter laugh.

"It's only now that I really understand what a terrible husband I've been."

"These past two years, I got in the habit of ignoring you. I stopped taking care of you the way I should have."

"No wonder you left me. I did such a poor job."

"Lauren, I'll change. I'll go back to being the Winston you used to love, and I'll be even better."

"I won't let you down again."

I sighed. "There's no need. We've already broken up. There's no reason for us to see each other anymore."

Then I hung up.

I settled into my new life easily.

Busy cleaning the new place, buying furniture and decorations, throwing myself into work, squeezing in practice problems between tasks to study for a certification.

From the moment I opened my eyes each morning until I lay down at night, I never stopped.

But I loved every minute of it.

The days were full and happy.

I never thought of Winston again.

Not once.

His future relationships, his life, none of it concerned me anymore.

I'd thought that after breaking up, we'd never see each other again.

That was my plan too.

After all, the world is a big place, and we'd started going our separate ways.

The chances of running into each other would shrink toward nothing.

For all practical purposes, Winston and I would never cross paths again.

But then...

When I ran into Winston again on my way downstairs, I was pretty startled.

What startled me more was that he'd found where I was renting.

"What are you doing here?" It came out before I could stop it.

"Coming home." He pointed to the door across the hall.

"You've got to be kidding." I didn't believe him.

"I'm not kidding." He gave the bag in his hand a little shake. "I just picked up some groceries. I'm going to make a big shared dinner tonight. Want to come eat?"

"Winston, have you lost your mind? Why would you move here?"

"I haven't lost my mind. I'm perfectly rational, and I know exactly what I'm doing." He still had it in him to smile.

"You're a grown adult. You should have some basic judgment. You own a house, and now you're paying extra to rent a place. Do you have so much money you don't know what to do with it? On top of that, this is on the complete opposite end of the city from where you work. You'll waste a ton of time commuting. You're almost thirty. Why are you still doing something this childish? You're past the age of acting on a whim!"

Winston only smiled faintly. "Lauren, it makes me happy. You still care about me."

I tried to break away and go check into a hotel, but Winston wouldn't give me the chance.

He hauled me along by force, insisting on dragging me back home.

"But that home isn't ours anymore."

"Winston, what's done is done. Let's get divorced."

"Why do you have to divorce me?"

He'd wracked his brain and still couldn't figure out why I kept coming back to this one point and wouldn't let go.

In his mind, I'd always given in to him on everything, and he assumed I couldn't live without him.

Our love hadn't come easily. Winston and I had started dating back in college. He was the student council president, top of his class and handsome besides, with a whole crowd of admirers.

I was the type of girl who kept her head down over her books and didn't care for socializing, so when everyone found out we were together, they all thought I wasn't good enough for him.

The truth was, Winston had thought so too at first.

If Eudora hadn't gone abroad to study back then, I might never have had my chance.

So Winston couldn't wrap his head around why I would ask for a divorce.

The way he saw it, choosing me had been an act of charity, and someone on the receiving end of charity had no right to make demands.

He couldn't tell where things had gone wrong, and he'd even started to wonder whether I'd fallen for someone else.

"Lauren, are you doing this on purpose to punish me for neglecting you lately? I swear I'll never do it again, I promise!"

"Let's just set the divorce aside for now, all right?"

Winston tried to seal my mouth with his again, but this time I put up my hand and blocked him.

This time I felt no interest whatsoever. The moment I thought of everything with him and Eudora, disgust rose in me for no clear reason.

I didn't want to go back anymore.

That night, for once in his life, Winston cooked himself, bringing over bags of food he'd made to find me.

I looked at that plate of shrimp and felt utterly let down.

I was allergic to shrimp, and after all these years he still didn't know.

Whether we were eating out or cooking at home, I never touched shellfish.

I only ate some plain rice, and Winston, thinking I had no appetite, deliberately picked up a shrimp and set it in front of me.

I said flatly, "I'm allergic to shrimp."

His chopsticks hung in midair, then he awkwardly drew them back before apologizing. "I'm sorry, Lauren. I actually do remember. My mind just went completely blank tonight."

"It has to be because you brought up the divorce. I've been out of my mind over it. You can't play jokes like that on me again."