Page 98 of The Lonely Road

Does he have children?

God! I’ve fallen in love with a man I barely know.

Then, as if reading my mind, he continues, “We were married for two years…nearly three years ago. She’s an architect. Very precise thinker, sees what a structure is trying to do before she looks at what it’s actually doing.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “She said it near the end. It wasn’t an accusation—just a fact she’d arrived at.”

“Was…is she right?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “I was and am very good at being in a room and not being in it at the same time. She called it before I would have named it myself.”

I turn that over.

“The divorce was easy.” He changes lanes elegantly, just like he drives.

“What does that mean? An easy divorce?”

“We sat in a lawyer’s office and divided things we collected when we were married, which were mostly hers. Neither of us fought about any of it, because we’d already been not fighting for long enough that there was nothing left to fight about.” He exhales. “That was the saddest part. Not the ending. The absence of the ending.”

I think about Griffin. About the way he ended things—with the coldness of a man executing a decision with no room for negotiation or even a response from my side. I thought at the time that coldness was the worst version. Now I’m not sure.

The absence of a fight seems worse; actually, the absence of anything left to fight about is probably the ugliest version of it.

“Why are you telling me this?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “Because, Counselor, you should know the facts about the man you….” He trails off, doesn’t say the words. “I am a bad bet, sweetheart. In the car, when I asked if you were okay. You said to ask you in an hour, and you’ll give me a different answer.” A pause. “Blair used to say that. Exactly that. When I asked how she was. She realized too late I was a bad bet. I promise you will, too.”

That annoys me. “I’m not your ex-wife, and you’re not to me what you were to her. I don’t need what she needs. You don’t even know what I need.”

“I do, Taya.” The certainty in those two words stops me.

He continues artlessly. “You need someone who stays. You need someone who is in the room—fully in it—not just passing through. You need someone who tells you the truth.” He pauses. “Three things I have a complicated relationship with.”

“You’re in the room right now,” I remind him.

“I am.”

“And you just told me the truth.”

He’s quiet.

“I’m not making a case. I’m just noting the evidence.” I look back out the window. “I’m a lawyer. I work with what’s in front of me.”

“Taya, fuck, sweetheart, I⁠—”

“And what’s in front of me,” I speak over him, “is a man who drove me to Ignacio, stood in the women’s line at the Bear Dance when I shawled him in front of God and Elder Nokoni and everyone, helped Daniel put up a shade structure, let my Godson use his body as a jungle gym, drove me to my vandalized office, sat in a hospital room with my people—and is now telling me he’s a bad bet.” I turn to look at him. “That’s a lot of behavior that contradicts the argument.”

A long silence.

“That’s the problem, Taya. I keep on contradicting the argument.”

“Maybe the argument is wrong.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Mason, I know you might leave. I know the survey work is done and you have other things, and I know you told me in Wíitsin’s kitchen that it’s a bad idea.” I pause. “I heard all of it. I’m not asking you to change what you said.” I look at the road ahead of us. “I’m just not going to pretend that what I see in you is a bad bet because what I see is a man who keeps showing up. And in my experience, showing up is most of it.”

He drives.

The canyon holds us on both sides.