I Told My Husband I Was Alone Up There

I told my husband the staff cabin was a single. It wasn't.

I've worked winter seasons at the same mountain resort since I was twenty-three. Lift tickets, rentals, the front desk when they're short. It's the only job I've ever loved, and my husband knows that, which is why he never asks too many questions about it. He works for the county. He does our taxes in January and changes the smoke alarm batteries on the first Sunday of every month. I married him because nothing about him has ever scared me.

My ex, Ryan, worked those seasons too. Eight years, on and off, the kind of on and off where you're never really off. He left the mountain the spring before I met my husband. Took a job in Montana, didn't say goodbye, sent one text from the road that said "I'm sorry, I couldn't do the slow version." I never asked what that meant.

My husband knows about him. Everyone in my life knows about Ryan. He was the reason I spent most of my twenties either very happy or on my best friend's couch.

This winter he came back. Same crew. Same housing block.

The staff housing is a long cinderblock building behind the maintenance shed. Thin walls, one kitchen, one bathroom down the hall that everyone fights over at six a.m. My room was at one end. His was two doors down.

The first night, the heater in my room clicked twice and died. Maintenance said morning. It was nine below outside. He knocked, held up his own space heater like a peace offering, and said, "Or you could just come sit in mine. It's the only one on this hall that works."

We sat on his bed in our coats and talked until three. About nothing. The bartender who got fired, the new chair lift, his mother's hip. Just talked. I went back to my cold room and lay awake until it got light.

The second night, the heater in my room worked fine. I went anyway. Neither of us mentioned it.

The third night, he told me why he left. Not the whole thing, just enough. He said he'd bought a ring that spring. He said he'd sat in his truck in the parking lot with it for an hour and realized he was going to ruin me slowly, the way his dad had ruined his mom, and that leaving fast felt kinder. "I was wrong about that," he said. "I just didn't know how to come back."

I didn't say anything. I lay down next to him with my back to his chest because it was easier than looking at him.

Sometime after two, his hand found my hip under the blanket. It didn't move. It was just there, warm and heavy, and every part of me went quiet and tight around that one spot. I hadn't felt that in years. Not like that, low and slow and everywhere at once. I lay awake until the window went gray, barely breathing, terrified he'd take his hand away and more terrified of what I'd do if he didn't.

The fourth night, he turned toward me and I felt his breath on my neck, and for about five seconds the whole building was silent. I was the one who sat up. I said I needed water. I stood in that disgusting shared kitchen for twenty minutes, holding a glass I never drank from.

On the fifth night, he said it out loud.

"You know I'm not going to be the one to do it, right? You're married. If something happens, it has to be you."

That was worse than if he'd kissed me. Because he was right, and because every night I'd been waiting for him to take it out of my hands.

Nothing happened. I want that on the record, even if it doesn't count for much.

My husband called every evening at seven. He'd tell me what he'd made for dinner, what the dog had chewed, whether the furnace guy came. He asked once if I was lonely up there. I said, "Freezing, but fine. It's quiet." The lie came out so smooth that I sat in the stairwell afterward with my hand over my mouth.

I came home on Sunday. He'd made the lasagna I like, the one that takes four hours. He'd put fresh sheets on the bed. He kissed my forehead and said I looked tired, and I said the season was brutal this year, which was true.

I took a shower while he set the table.

We still have a landline, because he likes it. He checks the messages every evening on speaker while he cooks, the same way he checks the mail. When I came out of the bathroom, the machine was halfway through one.

"Hi, this is Denise from staff housing up at the resort, calling for Kate. Housekeeping found your staff badge when they turned over Ryan's room this morning. It was down between the bed and the wall. We'll pop it in the mail to this address, no worries. Thanks, hon."

They had our home number because it's the emergency contact on my file. It has been for eleven years.

I'd been looking for that badge all Saturday. I thought I'd dropped it on the lift.

My husband pressed delete. He poured the wine. He asked about the new chair lift.

I don't know if he was even listening, or if he just pressed the button the way he presses it every night. That's the kind of man he is. Tidy. Careful. Never scared of anything.

That night he reached for me, and I let him. I kept my eyes closed the whole time.

I'm not going to say who I was thinking about. You already know.

I keep waiting for him to ask.

And I keep realizing I don't know what I'll say.