Lone eagle

He had been thinking about it all summer, and when he saw her in New York, it nearly tore his heart out, but he knew he was sure. The answer had been a long time coming because the questions were too hard. If she had asked him if he still loved her, he would have had to say he did. But her mother had called it correctly from the beginning. And so had he. In the end, Joe's first love was his planes. And what he had wanted from Kate, and to share with her, had been an impossible dream.

It took him days to say it to her, but finally he did. The night before he left for London, to acquire a small airline there, he saw Kate lying next to him in their bed, and knew he could never come back to her again. He would rather have shot her than say the words to her, but if for no other reason than that he loved her, he knew he had to free himself, and her.

“Kate.” She turned to him as he said her name, and it was as though she knew before he spoke. She had seen something terrifying in his eyes for three weeks, and had done everything she could not to provoke him this time. She had tried to stay small and stay away from him, and not anger him. They hadn't had a fight in months. But it had nothing to do with fighting, or not loving her. It had to do with him. He wanted more in his life than he was willing to share with her. He had nothing left to give. In sixteen years of loving her, he had given what he had, or could. The rest of what was left he wanted for himself. And he no longer wanted to apologize or explain or have to comfort her. He knew how abandoned she felt when he was gone, but he no longer cared. Meeting her needs and his own was just too much work for him.

Kate turned to look at him without saying a word. She looked like a deer that was about to be killed.

He took a breath and plunged. It was never going to be better saying it to her some other time. It could only get worse. There would be Thanksgiving and Christmas, and their anniversary, and holidays he didn't even know or care about, and then the summer and Cape Cod again. He had been married to her for three and a half years, and as it turned out, it was all he wanted from her, and all he wanted to give. He had been right from the first, he didn't want to be married or have kids, even hers, much as he had come to love them. But he didn't love any of them enough to stay with them. All he really needed and wanted in his life were planes. It was easier and safer for him. With only planes in his life, he would never get hurt. His own fears were greater than his need for her.

“I'm leaving you, Kate,” he said so softly that she didn't hear him at first. She just stared at him, thinking she had misheard the words. She had felt something coming for days, and she thought it was something like a long trip he was afraid to tell her about, but she had never expected this.

“What did you just say?” She felt crazy for a minute, as though the whole world had spun out of control. He couldn't possibly have said what she thought she just heard. But he had.

“I said I'm leaving you,” he couldn't look at her as he said it, and she stared at him. “I can't do this anymore, Kate.” As he said it, he looked back at her again, and he almost cringed when he saw the look in her eyes. It was the same look he had seen in the hospital in Connecticut when she discovered her babies had died. And probably the look on her face as a child when her father committed suicide. It was a look of total devastation, and the ultimate abandonment. And he felt wracked with guilt again doing that to her. But rather than making him feel closer to her, his own guilt drove them further apart.

“Why?” It was all she could say. She felt as though a scalpel had just sliced right through her heart. It was as though he had pulled it right out of her and dropped it on the floor. She could hardly catch her breath. “Why are you saying this to me? Is there someone else?” But she knew even before he answered her that it was about something much more profound than that. Something he didn't want and had never wanted to have. He had everything he had ever wanted now, just as she had the day she married him. And only one of them was going to get to keep the gift life had given them. The gift she had given him from her heart was one he no longer wanted from her. It was as simple as that. For him.

“There's no one else, Kate. There isn't even us anymore. You were right. I'm gone all the time. The truth is I can't be here. And you can't be with me.” The real truth was he wanted his life to himself. He wanted work and not love. The price he had to pay for love was too high for him. He had to allow himself to feel, and he didn't want to feel anything.