Page 104 of Wild Abandon

I nod, and he takes two glasses and fills them with tap water.

“When was the last time you were here?”

The place doesn’t look dirty. Neglected but not unkempt.

Nate places the glasses on the counter and thinks. “About a year? That’s when I started working at Henley’s. After the accident, I picked up some odd jobs here in the city, but I couldn’t keep anything. I needed to be with Ellie. That was the deal. I sit with her three days a week, and Ed takes the other four. Her friends were coming around, but life got in the way for them, and they stopped showing up. So, now, it’s just me and Ed.” He lightly shakes his head and walks the waters into the living room.

I down mine, just realizing how thirsty I am.

He takes my glass and puts it on the table. I have a familiar feeling with Nate. The one where he’s so close yet so far away. I want to touch him, but I can’t.

I raise a hand to my head and scratch my scalp, awakening me from my daydream. “I’ll crash here. Come get me when you wake up.” I look down at the brown leather sofa, eager to settle in.

Nate’s eyes dart down the hall as he places his hands in his pockets. “I, uh…I sleep out here.” He looks back at me. Those olive-green eyes defeated. “I didn’t think this through.”

“How long has it been since you slept in your bed, Nate?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Four years,” he breathes.

I close my eyes at the realization that the man has been living in a time capsule. The last day of Ellie Teller’s life as a fully functioning woman is captured in a third-floor apartment on Bay Street.

“That’s fine. We’ll just sit here for a while.” I plop down on the sofa and rest my head against the back. It definitely has the feel of a well-worn couch. One that has been slept on a lot.

Nate takes a seat next to me. Closer than he needs to yet, as with everything Nate, way too far away. When his back hits the cushions, he groans, and it reminds me of heaven.

It’s eerily quiet. Not a clock is ticking, nor is there a sound coming from a neighboring apartment. It’s four in the morning, and the world is asleep.

Except for us.

In a darkened room in an apartment in San Francisco are two people shouting in silence. My lungs are killing me.

Nate’s breaths are loud, not from breathing. From thinking. My knee is hovering a little too close to his. I move it away and reposition myself on the couch. His right hand is resting on the seat. The heat from it is searing into my hip. And it’s inches away.

In the veil of night, I feel like I’m in a confessional, my sins needing to be atoned for.

“I feel like a fool.” My voice is raspier than I expected, the hurt breaking through.

Nate doesn’t answer. He just breathes.

So, I continue, “When you came to Russet Ranch, it wasn’t to see me, was it?”

“No.”

My heart falls. What a fool I am, thinking he was there to apologize for pushing me away that night at the pool table.

“I heard Ed opened up for tours. I had to see it for myself,” he says.

“Russet Ranch was your ranch. The one you lost. Ed was the man who took you in.” Yes, a fool is who I am.

“We were at the ranch, the day of her stroke,” he speaks into the darkness. “It was harvest season. Ed and I were in the vineyard all day. Ellie didn’t want to come up. She loved living in the city. I wanted to be at the vineyard. Drove an hour and a half each way every day to be there. It was a fight we always had, but the ranch had become a part of me.

“When I got home that night, she was on the floor in the bedroom. I called an ambulance, and they did what they could. When Ed got there, he blamed me for not being with her. For always leaving her alone. If someone had been with her, she would’ve had a chance at a normal life.”

The story is a revelation. That is why Ed closed the doors, leased the land, and shut out the world. He didn’t just blame Nate. He blamed himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nate’s chin rises in the air as he studies the shadows on the ceiling being cast from a passing car. “I enjoyed just being Nate. Not Ellie’s husband. I know how that sounds, like I resent my life, resent Ellie. I don’t. And I do. Being her caregiver has become the one thing that defines me.”