Everything Changes

fistfights.”
    “It’s got nothing to do with Norm,” I say defensively. “It’s just been a crazy week.”
    She frowns and looks away. “What’s going on with you, Zack?”
    This is my chance. The critical moment is sitting there, ready and waiting to be seized, but somehow, lying in the wet spot with my thighs still sticky from our dried juices doesn’t seem like the right time to be confessing my sins and doubts. “I may have quit my job,” I say.
    “What do you mean, you may have?”
    “I left on Tuesday and I haven’t been back. I haven’t answered my cell, checked my e-mails, nothing.”
    “Why the hell would you do that?” she demands, the plucked tips of her eyebrows almost touching underneath her angrily furrowed brow.
    “It’s a shitty job.”
    Hope shakes her head exasperatedly. “Don’t you think we should have discussed it first?”
    “I wasn’t under the impression I needed your permission.”
    Hope’s eyes well up as if she’s been slapped. “Oh, for God’s sake!” She rolls off the bed and throws on a short satin robe. “It’s bad enough that you didn’t think to call me while I was away. You were obviously too busy smoking dope and getting into fights. But you made a major decision, one that affects me too, whether you like it or not, and you didn’t call me to discuss it.” She’s in tears now, her mouth quivering as she speaks. “What could you possibly have been thinking?”
    “You would have told me to stay.”
    “I would have helped you make a plan.”
    “I don’t want a plan!” I shout at her, shocking us both with my vehemence. “I’m tired of having a plan. I’ve been planning my whole life, and it isn’t working. I just want to sit back and breathe for a minute, figure out who the hell I am.”
    Hope stands stock-still, head cocked, aghast at my juvenile outburst. I steel myself for her response, but none is immediately forthcoming. She just nods her head slowly, wiping the tears off her face with the knuckles of her open hand. And looking into her moist eyes, it suddenly becomes clear to me that Hope gets it, that despite all the things I’m not saying, she’s registered my festering ambivalence along with my inability to change course. But even though she sees it, she’s not going to be the one who derails things, and she’ll back down every time if that’s what it takes. She understands that this will be a battle of attrition, and she has no intention of losing. “I already know who you are,” she says softly. “I love who you are. I don’t want to fight about this.”
    “Me neither,” I say, feeling like an asshole.
    I watch her as she walks into her bathroom to wash her face. From my vantage point I can see the smooth backs of her long legs, the soft curve of her behind peeking out from under her robe as she leans over the sink, and I can see her face in the mirror, red, wet, and resolved. She doesn’t deserve this, and I feel terrible for her that I’m not working out according to plan. Up until a few weeks ago, I’d shown so much promise.
    In the middle of the night, she wakes me up to make love again, and we do so wordlessly, in that ethereal state where sleep and consciousness dance. Only as we finish, and I taste the wet salt of her cheek on my tongue, do I realize that she’s been crying again.

Chapter 32
    “What are you doing?” Norm says to me in my room as I’m dressing for the engagement party.
    “Hope wants me there early,” I say.
    He shakes his head. “I mean, why are you doing this? You don’t want to marry her.”
    I look at him. “Of course I want to marry her.”
    “What about Tamara?”
    “Tamara’s a friend.”
    “That’s not how you explained it to me a few days ago.”
    I start knotting my Burberry tie, a gift from Hope. “Forget about that,” I say. “I was all messed up about the cancer thing. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
    “Cancer or not, I think you’re still messed up, and that’s no way to go into a marriage.”
    “Now you’re a marriage expert?”
    “I’m an expert on failed marriages, and I can see yours coming from a mile away.”
    My tie knot skews to the left, and I undo it to start again. “I’m fine, Norm.”
    “Here, let me.” He steps in front of me and starts fussing with the tie. “When I married your mother, I didn’t have a doubt in the world that she was my soul mate. I went in with no reservations, not a single one.”
    “And we all know how that worked