You Found Me Too Late

My husband came home smelling of violet perfume that wasn't mine. He called me the way he used to and pulled me into his arms. "If you need to cry, just cry, okay?

I'm home." I was still in the black dress from the funeral. I looked at him, quiet and calm. "I haven't cried in years. You know that." I told him to go take a shower first.

Once he was in the bathroom, I stood at the floortoceiling window and looked down. Sixtysix floors up. Suddenly I wanted to know which hurt more—chemo, or jumping from here.

Chapter 1 My phone kept buzzing. I skipped past the condolence messages and stared at a string of voice messages, and my hands started to shake.

I couldn't tap play fast enough. "Happy birthday, Sis! You have to remember to eat cake, okay?

Here's a secret—I already recorded a hundred happy birthdays, so you have to live to be a hundred, and then you'll get to hear my happy birthday every single year." I pressed a hand to my chest, braced myself against the glass, and doubled over.

I—I didn't have a brother anymore.

Right before my birthday, after a year of fighting bone cancer, it finally took him. … Someone kept knocking on the bedroom door, but I ignored it.

He called me by my childhood nickname. In my memory, he'd called me that back when we were both kids. "Maggie, I ran you a hot bath.

Open the door and I'll carry you in so you can soak, okay?" "Maggie, open the door." … I leaned against the window and stared stiffly at the glittering sprawl of downtown.

I even wanted to tell him: Go. Anywhere is fine. Don't come back. Four years of an empty bed had long since gotten me used to the cold and the quiet.

Four years ago, he never showed up at my mom's funeral. And now he hadn't been at my brother's funeral either. Right now, he really didn't need to come back.

And I hadn't been hoping he would. … He'd probably found out I didn't have long. All of a sudden he was staying home and being unusually attentive to me.

Chapter 2 Or maybe he'd guessed. After all, my mom and my brother had both died of the same disease—bone cancer. In our family, the risk clearly ran deep.

I sat on the couch with the cat in my arms, watching TV. He made breakfast. "I made your favorite oatmeal. Eat a little." I put the cat down and came to sit at the dining table.

I picked up the spoon and took a spoonful of oatmeal. "We're going over to Grandma's at noon. Are you up for it?" "I'm up for it." I took another spoonful.

After breakfast, I changed into different clothes and went with him to Grandma's. Was it fall already? The leaves along the road had started turning yellow.

A scarf was wrapped around my neck. "Don't catch a chill." At the family house, Grandma kept looking at me, worry always in her eyes.

The hearty cheer she used to have was gone, and every so often she sighed.

I kept her company, but every so often I glanced at the TV and giggled. "Grandma, this show is so good." "It is.

Grandma thinks it's good too." Before lunch, I went out to wander the garden for a while. I didn't come back until it was almost time to eat. "End it right now.

Can't you see something's really wrong with Maggie?" "She just lost the only family she had left.

Think what kind of blow that is for her." "I honestly don't know what's so great about that woman that you have to keep her around and keep hurting Maggie." "You didn't even come back for Fletch's funeral.

Are you trying to drive her to her death?" "I got the fastest flight there was, and I still didn't make it." It was Preston's voice. "The hospital told you ages ago that he was critical.

You never should have left the country then—and you even took that woman along. Forget Maggie, any wife would have lost her mind." "She flew there on her own…" "Enough.

It won't change anything. Be good to her for the time she has left. Atone." I backed away, walked another loop outside, and only then went back.

When I returned, Preston was already standing at the front gate, waiting for me. He was in his coat, and for once there was worry for me in his eyes. "Where were you?

I couldn't find you anywhere in the garden." "I ran into a stray dog. I took it to a shelter." "Your hands are red from the cold." He came over and took my hand. My body went stiff.

Maybe my hand was just too cold—held in a warm one, it jerked in reflex. He held my hand, then tightened his grip, as if trying to hold on to something.

When I saw Grandma standing in the doorway waiting for us, I forced out a smile and followed him inside. We had lunch at the family house, then said goodbye to Grandma.

I'd already quit my job. For whatever days I had left, I stayed home cooking, eating, and sleeping, as useless as a person could be.

When there was a good show, I'd hold my phone and watch it all night, night after night. Preston said something about it, and I didn't listen.

Mostly it was because his tone was too gentle—nothing like the way we used to fight, always going at each other tooth and nail. That night, I stayed up till dawn on my phone.

In the morning, when he woke up and saw I was still on it, he took the phone from me. "That's enough. Give your eyes a rest." But this time he was wrong.

I was in the middle of serious business. I was negotiating with a cemetery salesperson over a burial plot. He looked at the screen and froze on the spot.

I held out my hand. "I'm almost done. Give it back." In an instant he was like a trapped animal, the veins standing out on his fists. He didn't say anything.

He walked out with my phone. Chapter 3 I came out, picked up the cat by the door, and looked toward the balcony.

Behind its closed door, he was smoking one cigarette after another, almost swallowed up in the smoke.

In the days that followed, he was exceptionally good to me and went along with everything I wanted. I'd sit by the floortoceiling window watching the sunset and fall asleep.

He'd carry me gently back to bed. When I curled up in the living room watching TV, he watched with me.

He also cooked food from a different country every day, making sure no two days' meals were the same. Sometimes I'd zone out watching him in the kitchen in his loungewear.

Oh, and he'd thoughtfully put away the calendar in the house. So I wouldn't see the pageaday calendar getting thinner and thinner.

That day, I was scrolling through videos and saw lots of people giving flowers, and only then did I realize it was Valentine's Day.

The bedroom door was pushed open softly, and I switched off the video.

He had something to say. "What is it?" "I need to go out for a bit." I paused, then went along with it. "Okay." Whether he went out or not, he didn't need to tell me at all.

After he left, I changed into a sweater too and decided to go out for a walk. The afternoon sun spilled lazily over the streets.

We were almost out of cat food, so I bought two big bags of kitty treats, and some chips I liked for myself.

My hands were full, but I still meant to stop by my favorite coffee shop for a hot coffee.

At the crosswalk, I looked at the coffee shop across the street, and I knew I wasn't going to get to drink that coffee. By the coffee shop window, Preston looked out.

By the time shock showed in his eyes, it was already too late for me to get away. In the end, I was the one who shattered their cozy holiday moment.

Against the flow of the crowd, I turned quickly and left. I didn't understand it myself. I'd just seen Ingrid, in her red dress, looking as good as ever.

But the towering hatred I'd once felt for her had all faded away.

I still remembered the first time I found out she existed: I stormed over to the bay house, smashed the place up, and tore into her until we were both bloody, the skin on both our faces clawed open.

Looking back now, it was so childish. Carrying my bags, I took a cab home, fed the cat some treats, rubbed its round little belly, and sighed.

It was just like me—once it was full, all it wanted was to sleep. After I put it back in its kitty condo, I started packing my clothes. I was planning to leave.

I'd thought about it before. Not for any other reason—only because in the last days of my life, I was sure to be a mess, and not pretty to look at.

I wanted to find a place with no one around and leave quietly there.

I packed one big suitcase, carried it to the door, and looked back once more at the home I'd put together with my own hands. The sleeping cat woke and looked at me, bewildered.

In the taxi, I held the cat. Together, we tipped our heads back and looked at the sky outside the window. Half