Page 69 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

“Good.”

I’d made roasted chicken, potatoes, and asparagus for dinner. Even though my energy was still drained, I’d gotten home before Peter and decided to cook a decent meal for us. Making dinners was one of the few ways that I still did my best to keep up appearances. And we had to eat anyway, so it didn’t matter if it felt that it didn’t matter.

Though rushing through dinner had become our new normal, the job I’d done in cooking the meal was such that we couldn’t help but savor it. I desperately wanted dinner to be over with—just as Peter did—but the food was too good to rush through. So, we ate in silence, our utensils clattering against our plates as we fed ourselves.

It wasn’t until Peter slid the last potato from the end of his fork and into his mouth that he spoke again.

“I’m tired of this, Enzo,” he said.

I nodded. I didn’t need an explanation to know what he meant.

“Some days I don’t even want to come home.”

I didn’t need an explanation for that statement, either. Our house was no longer a home. It was a prison. The two of us played prisoner and guard for each other, constantly tiptoeing around each other, afraid of catching the attention of the other.

“I don’t want that anymore,” he said.

“Okay,” I said.

There was nothing to discuss or argue about, as far as I was concerned.

“Can we please,” Peter said, “stop doing this? Can we be Enzo and Peter again? I want us to be who we were.”

That. That was not something I had expected. When Peter had said he was tired and didn’t want what we had anymore, I thought we were coming to the inevitable conclusion to our marriage. Because after the last several months, that conclusion seemed natural. Obvious.

“Can’t we just…do something like we used to?” he asked as I poked at my plate with the tines of my fork. “Leave the dishes on the table and go upstairs and fall into bed together? Fuck our brains out? Laugh and tease and just…not hate each other?”

“I don’t hate you,” I said, but I didn’t look up at him.

“I’m starting to hate you.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t meant to be dismissive, though, in retrospect, anyone would have obviously taken it that way. I’d simply meant it as a gesture to indicate that I understood and couldn’t give him a reason not to hate me.

“Goddamnit, Enzo,” Peter pushed back from the table violently.

He didn’t rise from his chair and I didn’t look up.

“It has been months of this shit,” he groaned angrily. “Day after day of you pushing me further and further away. Not talking to me. Not letting me in. Ignoring me. Making me feel like everything is my fault but not telling me what it is that I did.”

“Nothing is your fault.”

“Then tell me what it is I need to do, goddamnit,” he pounded his fist on the table. “Tell me what I can do to help you with whatever you’re going through. We’re supposed to be in this together, Enzo. I can’t be in it with you if you don’t invite me in.”

Peter was right. I had been pushing him away. I had no idea why. It could have been how hard it had been to adjust to America at first. It could have been all of the pain and nausea and sleeplessness. It could have been the feeling that he hadn’t treated me like an equal in our marriage for so long. Or, actually, that he didn’t do enough to prove he felt I was his equal in our marriage. Or, possibly, it was all of those things combined. It could have been the vague unhappiness I’d felt for months that had nothing to do with my physical health.

Or something else.

“I leave here each morning,” Peter growled at me, “wondering if today is the day that I come home and you’ve just left. You’ve checked out mentally, so why should I be surprised if you completely left? Then I fantasize that I’ll come home and you’ll be waiting to throw your arms around me. Hug me. Kiss me. Lead me upstairs and have sex with me again. Or…fuck…talk to me like a normal-fucking-human-being.”

I laid my fork on my plate and sat back.

“Or maybe even talk to me like you still care about me. Like I’m not invisible. Or that you don’t hate me. I feel neglected all of the damn time, Enzo. But you won’t tell me what I’ve done to deserve to be neglected like this.”

I still could not figure out what it was that I wanted to say.

“You know what?” Peter asked, his voice shaky. “The other day, this guy I work with—gay guy—he was looking at me. Across the office. He was looking at me the way you used to look at me. And for the briefest of moments, I fantasized that—”

Our kitchen has hardwood floors. When a table is flipped—one containing two plates, silverware, a roasting pan, bowls, and glasses, it’s thunderous. I didn’t remember wrapping my fingers around the edge of the table, gripping it angrily, and flipping it, sending it crashing end over end, spilling the remaining contents of our dinner to the floor and splattering against the cabinets. However, it had to have happened. I was standing in front of my chair, glaring down at Peter as he sat two yards away from me, staring up at me with horror. And the table and everything it had held, was littered throughout the kitchen.