Tobin Keller put down the phone and looked around the room, his eyes blank with sorrow, his hands trembling slightly. Of all the ways he imagined his wife finally leaving him, he never pictured this. But he didn't disbelieve it for a second. It was his job to separate truth from lies, and although he usually heard more of the latter, he knew the truth when he heard it, and this was it. Feeling cold and numb, he sat down at his desk and poured himself a Scotch, only for his better judgment to slide it away. Twelve floors below his midtown apartment the tire screeches and car horns didn't let up, not even for a breath of silence. It was almost as if nothing had happened.
He reached for the phone but realised he had no one to call. He wouldn't phone the bureau just yet. He knew everyone there too well to make it a short, functional call, but not well enough to really talk about it. They were all career driven, like him, trying not to let personal lives interfere with their work. It wasn't a selfish trait - you had to be like that to work for the Secret Service, but it meant not one of them would know how to react. He wouldn't either, he thought, if a colleague called him out of the blue and informed him that their wife had just been killed in a high-speed car crash near Santa Fe. What do you think? What do you say? What do you do if it's your wife?
Everyone he knew had told him she was no good for him. She was reckless, they'd say. Irresponsible. He deserved better. He wasn't a stupid man, and he knew what lead them to say it. Sometimes she'd stay out all night and he'd wake up to an empty bed in the morning. Other times she'd leave him for days, even weeks on end. On the odd occasion when she'd been away for some time, he'd feel like he didn't even know her. Perhaps this strange, beautiful woman wandering around his apartment in her lace underwear and bathrobe was not his wife but someone he'd picked up after a drunken night out.
It was ridiculous, and painful. Those were the times when he'd come closest to calling it off. The kind lectures from friends would begin again, but he could only nod patiently while his eyes glazed over, staring out the nearest window, wondering when she would next return. All the reckless behaviour in the world couldn't shake off his feelings for her. No matter what she'd done or where she'd been, something always drew him to her again, and he knew in his heart it was the same thing that always drew her back to him.
The room was growing darker as night set in, but it didn't feel right to turn the lights on. The crystal bottle of Scotch in front of him sparkled in the moonlight. He reached for his glass, swigged back the contents and shook off the burn with determination. For a second he thought about calling Dot, his partner at the FBI. She was a fierce agent, bitter and sardonic at times, but after countless late nights standing in the corners of smoky cigar lounges and monitoring the antics of boozy foreign ministers they had ended up sharing every minutae of their personal lives, unavoidably growing deeply fond of eachother in the process.
If anyone could understand him right now, it would be her. It didn't feel right though, lobbing his grief onto her shoulders. There's was a strange relationship; they could confide in eachother on all matters personal, yet at the same time they were not friends in the traditional sense of the word. While on assignment, no topic was off limits, but outside of work, they barely spoke. He once thought that if he bumped into her on the street, they'd probably have the sort of awkward, gesture-driven conversation that acquaintances have when they're not quite sure whether they know eachother well enough to stop and talk. He never thought he'd think such a thing about a woman he'd once stayed up all night and watched the sunrise with (while doing night watch at an Upstate diplomat's party), but their's was a strictly professional relationship.
He had no one to call. He wasn't sure if he wanted to call anyone anyway. Federal agent's don't need counsellors, he decided, and poured himself another glass of Scotch. Nothing could take his mind of his wife, his ex-wife. Pictures of them together stood framed around his desk. The only way he would ever see her azure eyes again would be through them. Thin, flimsy, lifeless photographs the only way to revisit her. It was cruel. He took another sip of his Scotch, and then filled his glass up. She had not been a perfect wife, he thought, but neither had he been a perfect husband. Their lifestyles were different. She was a dancer, he was a federal agent. She lived for the moment, wild and spontaneous, and he had a professional duty to stay grounded, to do everything by the book. She had a new dream for every day of her life, and he wasn't able to give her any of them. If they had just one thing in common, it was that they were in love.
The bottle of Scotch was empty now. Tobin drew circles in the air with his empty glass, and then sat it back down on the desk. He looked at the clock. Nearly midnight. He looked around the room but there was nothing left to distract him. As the numbness faded the pain he had been holding back began to surface. There was no one around to see him, so what did it matter. Resting his face in his hands, he broke down into tears.