Page 69 of Chasing the Other Woman

The leather is softer than I expect. Warmer than it should be. My thumb finds the worn place near the clasp where I used to rub it when I was thinking.

My stomach turns.

For a second, I’m not in our bedroom.

I’m standing at the edge of a lake two months after the accident, the bracelet clenched in my fist so tight the clasp dug into my palm. Hershel was waiting by the truck, pretending he didn’t know what I was there to do. The water was dark. The wind smelled like wet grass.

I raised my arm.

I couldn’t let go.

Because it wasn’t only blood.

It was Sam’s shy smile in that booth. It was her saying, Something to keep me with you. It was her fingers fastening it around my wrist because I kept fumbling the clasp on purpose so she’d lean closer. It was her laughing when I told her I was never taking it off unless I lost the whole damn arm.

So I didn’t throw it.

I came home and put it in this tin.

Then I let Sam believe whatever explanation hurt her most, because I never gave her the truth.

My hand shakes as I turn the bracelet over.

I want there to be a lightning strike of a moment. Some kind of hard line between the man who took it off and the man standing here now. There isn’t. There’s only me in a dark bedroom with my wife’s side of the bed empty and a piece of leather in my hand.

I sit on the edge of the mattress.

The clasp is small. Stubborn. My left hand doesn’t want to cooperate, and my right is shaking too badly to be useful.

“Come on,” I mutter.

The sound of my own voice in the room makes my throat tighten.

I try again.

This time, the clasp catches.

The bracelet settles around my wrist.

I close my eyes.

The first image comes fast. Sam’s blood on the leather. Dark and drying. My hands slick. The hospital lights. A doctor’s voice saying something that would make Sam sob.

I breathe through my teeth.

The mattress dips beneath my weight. Somewhere in the house, the air conditioner kicks on with a low hum. The room is cool. The bracelet is snug against my skin. I'm here, not there.

Another image comes.

Sam at twenty-two, leaning over the table at The Funnel Cloud, trying not to watch my face too closely when I opened the box.

Then Sam in the passenger seat, boot braced on the dash, telling me I was about to miss the best road option in the county because I was too busy admiring my own driving.

Then Sam in bed beside me at one in the morning, stealing the blanket and denying it while half asleep.

Then Sam this afternoon, standing in front of me with her bare hand and her steady voice, asking what happens the next time I’m afraid.

I open my eyes.