I Stopped Chasing Him After Ten Years And Never Looked Back Chatper 07
The second month, Jared’s changes became more obvious.
He started to help with housework, taking out the trash and wiping the table, and once, when I got home, I found him mopping the floor.
The mop lay sideways on the floor, and the mopped areas were full of water stains, like a fish had flopped around on.
He had no idea he was supposed to wring it out first.
Without teaching or correcting him, I let him mop while I did my own thing.
He also started buying me things.
One day, I got home from work and found a paper bag by the door.
I opened it. It was a scarf. Dark gray, pure cashmere. I recognized the brand. It cost over two thousand dollars.
No card, no note.
Before, he couldn’t even remember my birthday.
In ten years of marriage, he’d only given me one gift, in the first year—a bottle of perfume.
Later, I saw the same style at Karen’s place. She’d bought it and asked him to give it to me.
I put this scarf on the top shelf of the cabinet. I didn’t wear it.
The biggest change was with his phone.
On Wednesday night, I was drawing in the study when my phone lit up.
A message from Jared.
I froze.
We lived under the same roof, and he was texting me?
I opened it. It was a voice message.
I didn’t play it.
Right after that, he sent a text.
[Tisha, I passed by that coffee shop you used to go to the other day. They took your favorite caramel latte off the menu. They have a new drink called something cold brew, I don’t really get it. I just wanted to tell you.]
It had 44 words.
In ten years, the longest message Jared had ever sent me was seven words. [Arrived. Got it. What do you think?]
Now he’d sent 44 words.
And he knew I liked caramel latte.
I’d thought he didn’t know.
I’d thought he knew nothing.
I stared at the text for a long time.
Then I did what he’d done for ten years, reading it without replying.
The next night, he sent another message.
[Today, Cora drew a picture of you in preschool. You’re wearing round glasses and drawing. She did a pretty good job of making it look like you. I took a photo. Do you want to see it?]
I finished reading, tapped the photo, and zoomed in.
Cora had drawn my hair as a ball of black yarn, and the round glasses were so big they covered half her face.
Ugly, but cute.
I saved the photo but didn’t reply.
Day three. Day four. Day five.
He sent a message every day, sometimes just a sentence, sometimes a paragraph, long or short.
[Today, the braised pork belly in the company cafeteria tasted a lot like yours, but not as good.]
[I saw that travel video you used to post online, the one from San Francisco. I remember the wind was really strong that day.]
[All the ginkgo leaves downstairs are yellow. Didn’t you used to like picking ginkgo leaves as bookmarks?]
He remembered the strong wind in San Francisco.
He remembered I used ginkgo leaves as bookmarks.
He remembered my braised pork belly.
So he did remember.
He just thought it wasn’t important enough to respond to.
Now that I’d stopped chasing him, these memories had surfaced from some corner of his mind.
It’s already too late.
If he’d said these things five years ago, I would’ve hugged him and cried.
Three years ago, I would’ve jumped three feet high.
A year ago, I probably would’ve softened.
But now, looking at those messages, what I felt wasn’t touched but a faint, tired feeling.
Like after a marathon, when someone hands you a glass of water.
You’re not thirsty anymore.