Chapter 3. There's distance and there's silence

What cannot be cured, must be endured.

Addison is thinking about this phrase as they sift through the next Derek's stuff tote, which ends up being a misleading label. There are some things in the tote that are Derek's, but not everything; it seems like they just kept adding to it over the years, and determined they would properly sort through everything at a later date…and that date never came. There are extra hand towels. Ceremony programs from med school graduation. Gold candlesticks. A Monopoly game with a battered cover. A tape deck. Matching ankle weights. Some drawings from Maya. Coasters. Faded ticket stubs from a show at MSG—Paul McCartney, in April 2002. Derek bought the tickets, but he got them for her more than for himself.

None of these are worth hanging onto. They aren't trash, exactly—not to Addison, at least—but keeping them does not make sense. The contents of the tote might be tangible, but they feel more like memories than anything else.

What cannot be cured, must be endured.

Bizzy says that, sometimes. For a number of things. Usually frivolous things. When a particularly rainy spring affected the blossom production of her geraniums. When tourist season comes to Martha's Vineyard. When a four-year-old Addison located a pair of scissors and decided to fashion herself some bangs (Bizzy had the same response twenty-something years later, even though that time Addison's bangs were professionally cut). When Clinton edged Bush Sr. out of a second term. When her favorite restaurant stopped accepting reservations on Sundays. When a commissioned oil painting that hung in the sitting room sustained minor sun damage. When Archer complained that his physics teacher had it out for him. When two months had passed and the trainer still had not been able to break the Arabian they purchased from a breeder in New Hampshire.

And, though it was never said so explicitly, maybe the expression was also meant to map the landscape of Bizzy's marriage to the Captain. That was what Addison thought.

"Have you tried to move past it?" Bizzy had asked her a little over a year ago, when Addison disclosed there had been infidelity, and she and Derek were spending time apart. Her mother's question was coded WASP-speak for, Can you just ignore it, like I've always done?

Bizzy had it wrong though. She thought Derek cheated. Addison cleared that up during the phone call, because a wife-bound instinct—even though she didn't feel like a wife anymore—made her want to protect him. It did not matter what her reasons for winding up in bed with Mark were; the fact was, she cheated. And she had to take responsibility for that.

The whole matter with her mother was, regrettably, unavoidable. It was not as if the two Montgomery women were in frequent communication, but Addison had to say something when Bizzy called to summon her for the Captain's annual regatta. Not going was not an option; it never had been, so Addison would always plan accordingly in the form of making sure she was not on-call, and that all the patients at her practice were left in capable hands. Same with Derek. They went together. No matter what Derek thought of her parents—and it wasn't anything positive—he made himself available that day, because in the grand scheme of things, Bizzy and the Captain did not ask much of him. That said, not going was the only option for Addison last year. She couldn't have even made the trek to Greenwich by herself, and cobbled up an excuse for Derek, because that July she was doubled over with cramps as residual blood weighed onto the pad cushioned between her legs.

(She went through it alone. She couldn't tell Savvy; her friend knew some of the uglier details of the past two months, but it just felt too embarrassing for Addison to share that she was pregnant, and had no intention of remaining so. And she couldn't tell Mark to come over to the brownstone, where she had holed herself up as the misoprostol paved the way to utter emptiness, because she couldn't handle his mix of sadness and anger.)

"Well, that's very disappointing, dear. Very disappointing indeed," Bizzy proclaimed after Addison admitted she was the guilty party. "You should still try to fix it though. Go to Seattle—no matter how dreary everything about that city sounds—and make amends. Find a way to work it out."

(Addison tried. She really did.)

(Which is more than she can say for her ex-husband.)

"Maybe we should do the upstairs first, and then come back to the Christmas stuff," Addison quickly suggests when she notices Derek glance at the collection of totes that hold all their holiday decorations.

"Why?" He counters with a furrowed brow. "We're already down here. We might as well get it out of the way."

Right. Get it out of the way.

(You learn a lot about who you married when you get divorced.)

She does see Derek's point. Once they sort through the Christmas stuff, their only remaining "downstairs task" will be to box up everything that is not going in the trash. It's orderly and methodical, which is who Derek is at his core. But, Addison wonders if she acquiesced because it's sense-making, or out of habit. Deferring to his wants and needs was something she did frequently throughout the marriage, especially toward the end, when she was desperate for any sign of attention.

(He never understood how little she was asking of him. Presence does not require much. Or, worse: he did understand, but it didn't matter.)

They embark on a different approach this time with toss, keep, donate. They will get to that, of course, but it seems easier to start with compilations based on category and location. The star tree topper, the tangled rope of multi-colored lights, plaid tree skirt, and ornaments—so many ornaments—start to go in one pile. Anything that went on the mantel goes in another—cable knit stockings Carolyn made them, faux flocked garland, and reindeer stocking holders. Then there are the things they would display in the living room: snow globes, festive throw pillows, tabletop trees, candles with red berries melted into the wax that were too pretty to ever consider burning, cascading lights they would string over the large window that faced 67th, and the prettiest nativity set, even though neither of them was particularly religious (Addison never, Derek not anymore). And then, lastly, the outdoor decorations: the welcome mat that says 'Tis the season, the lights they would wrap around the handrails, and a long red ribbon for the wreath they would get for the front door.

(They used to go to a lovely Christmas tree farm in Manalapan to pick out a tree and a wreath. And then it became easier—and lazier—to have both items brought to them by a local delivery company.)

It is simply too much, which is precisely why Addison had wanted to save their Christmas stuff until the end. When she cups a hand around the personalized Our First Christmas ornament they bought in 1994—not their first Christmas together, but their first one as husband and wife—this becomes the much-ness of all the much-ness she is experiencing.

She decides to excuse herself, to take a few minutes as to not succumb to tears in front of a man who is not anywhere close to being as affected by the process of breaking down a life as she is. She takes a look at her phone—and is careful to make sure Derek sees this—and then reports she has a missed call from her brother. It's a solid trick, since it's not like Derek would ever text Archer and subsequently find out she wasn't being truthful. Plus, what's one more lie at this point?

Addison takes refuge on the stoop until she is able to regain her composure. She keeps her gaze trained to the left, focusing on the cluster of bushes and trees on the other side of Central Park West as she draws in great, expansive gulps of air. Moisture crowding her eyes temporarily blurs all the greenery. And, as she wipes away a tear, she finds herself marveling over the fact that in just a few more weeks the splendor of fall will turn those leaves red, orange, and yellow.

(Everything changes with time.)

"How's Archer doing?" Derek murmurs when she comes back into the dining room about ten minutes later. It is a question born more out of general decency than interest.

Addison observes that he has an ornament in each hand: a white sphere in the right, and a Thurman Munson figurine in the left. She did not question for a minute that Derek would keep the Munson one—his dad bought it for him, and there is also something to be said about the fact that the lives of both Christopher and the Yankees catcher were cut tragically short—but it still brings warmth to her heart when Derek sets it aside.

"He's fine." Addison keeps her tone light and unaffected when she answers the question. Spending a few minutes outside—away from all of this—definitely helped. Or mostly helped. "He's on the Vineyard this weekend," she adds. "Working on his next book."

Derek gives her a thin smile. "More tall tales?"

"Probably."

Tall tales. Some days Addison's marriage—former marriage—feels like one of those. It happened. It was real. The happier, blissful, love-filled memories were not exaggerated, or lacking in truth. But some days it feels that way.

Some days it feels like she wasn't a part of the story at all.

It is nearly three o'clock by the time they finish sorting through everything in the dining room. Without communicating what they have in mind, they head directly to the basket Savvy sent, and break into the snacks. They each have an apple, and open up a large bag of chips they both like from Trader Joe's, but have never been able to find—together or separately, now always separately—in Seattle. It was a very "Savvy thing" to have remembered they like this particular flavor. Derek acknowledges that, and then they manage to make some small talk, mostly about work.

(That's kind of all they have left, it feels like sometimes. And Derek still has not brought up the fact that she told him over the phone that she was going to be resigning at the end of the month, which automatically implies a different place of work in the future. Surely he is at least a little interested about what her plans are?)

Refueling—they will need to eat something more substantial later, but this will hold them over for a bit—seems necessary after everything they have done, but when Addison tosses her apple core in the trash, she considers that stopping to eat is also a delay tactic. Maybe sorting through Christmas stuff was not just about efficiency for Derek. The next part will be significantly harder—and that is really only just now occurring to Addison. Christmas was easier to handle first. The sentimentalism made it painful, to be sure, but there is no discounting the fact that the entirety of the second floor holds an intimacy component.

(And also a trauma component. For both of them. Even though Addison knows he doesn't think about it that way for her.)

(She hurt him first. But he scared her first.)

"Ready?" She asks quietly when they reach the bottom of the staircase. Derek is staring past her, eyeing the sconces running up the wall. He does not verbalize an answer, but he does wave his hand in a way that seems to say, after you.

"I was thinking that we could start with your office." Addison indicates the nearest door when they reach the top of the landing. When they first moved into the brownstone, and were determining what each extra room should "be," she made a small room downstairs—opposite the living room, and to the right of the staircase—her office. She liked it because it was warmer. In contrast, it was always cold in Derek's office.

(How appropriate.)

"The guest bathroom's been cleared out," she continues, sensing the discomfort beginning to set in. "Same with the storage closet. So after the office, that will just leave the guest room and…" she trails off when Derek raises a finger, and points to the end of the hallway, where their bedroom is. Was. Was.

"That one's all you," he states, voice low and cold.

"Derek—"

"You think it's easy for me to be up here? To be here at all…?"

"No, I don't." Addison refrains from stating, you're not the only one this is difficult for. "I'll probably need some help with the totes in there though." There are some heavier ones on the top shelf of their walk-in closet. She could get them without Derek. It's just that…he was always the one who got them, whenever they needed something. Addison did not expect to share this detail though; it just slipped out. She quickly adds, in an attempt to move forward and—though it feels desperate and pathetic—to lighten Derek's mood, "Why don't we just work on the office and the guest room for now."

Her ex-husband is agreeable to this suggestion. Or, at least agreeable enough to pace a few steps to the left and enter the office. It is just as sparse as Addison remembers it being the last time she was here. All that remains is a painting of Lake Champlain, an acrylic file box (she assumes anything still in it will be shredded), and a mid-century desk with accompanying shelves—practically empty shelves. Most of the things Derek kept in his home office eventually made their way to the office at his practice.

(Of course they did. That was where he spent the majority of his time, at the end.)

"I had Beth take the swivel chair the last time she was here," Addison remarks as they make their way over to the desk. Derek turns back to face her at the mention of Beth. "Savvy's cousin," she explains when he appears confused. She told him about Robert earlier, the one who can handle shipping everything they want to keep, but she is not sure she told Derek about Beth. Or she did and he just wasn't listening. It would not be the first time. "Her organization collects furniture to donate to those in need, and just…other things like that." She shrugs, not feeling a desire to elaborate. "So whatever we don't want, but still might be useful to someone else—she has a team who can come over and get it."

"Oh. That's nice. I guess we can add this guy to the list of things to donate then."

Addison watches as he drags a hand along the wide, sleek desktop. When Derek reaches the shelf set, his fingers close around a picture of her on their wedding day, taken before the ceremony. It is a simple shot, a black and white of Addison peering out the window of the Edwardian Suite that she and her bridesmaids were getting ready in. Her arms were spread out—at the photographer's instruction—as she held open a layer of sheer curtains. Light was cutting a path all around her.

It is a beautiful photograph. Stunning, honestly. But, a bit of an unexpected selection, Addison felt, when her new husband decided this was the one he wanted to frame and display in his office.

"Don't you want one with my face?" She had asked Derek. The photographer took the shot from behind her, wanting to capture the length of Addison's veil, and the delicate lace on her court train, which had been carefully fanned out for the picture.

"I like the light in the one," Derek replied. "And I like the view. It's perfect." He smirked when he added, "Very scenic."

"Well, the pond and Gapstow Bridge can't be seen in the picture, so I'm guessing you mean a different kind of view."

"True, but"—his eyes became softer then—"I really like this one of you, Addie."

(She is not sure why Derek did not transfer this picture to his other office, given that he eventually moved so many other things there. There were two pictures of them as a couple—one of them at their wedding reception, and one of them seated on the edge of the Bethesda Fountain—that Addison can remember him taking to work. But not this one.)

(She is also not sure what happened to everything in his office at his former place of business. Maybe when the other neurosurgeon—Todd—bought Derek's share, he mailed a few things to him. Or maybe Weiss went to the practice to retrieve some things. Or maybe Derek told the people at the practice to just toss everything.)

"Here. I don't know if…" he looks embarrassed as he gives Addison the framed picture. Finally, she thinks. It is perversely comforting that there is some indication that Derek recognizes how uncomfortable all of this is.

"Thanks. I'll, um"—she awkwardly shrugs—"just bring it downstairs later. I…most of the photos are in a box near the storage bench. They're still in their frames." She had been waiting for Derek to ask, to notice all the empty spaces when they were downstairs. They had so many photos in the living room, both on the bookcase and on the walls. Not a word from him though. And she tells herself that the reason Derek hasn't asked about any of the other pictures now is because he has just moved up to the next shelf. The one with the popsicle stick house. His touch is tender when he places it on the desktop. Addison thinks that, of all the things Derek has ever owned, this is one of the ones that means the most to him. So much so that she would never even dream to put a finger on a single stick.

The first time Derek showed her the house, he told her that he felt he had been too old to build it—he was twelve at the time, he said. But Amelia, who was only five, had wanted to make one, so Derek and his dad helped. They were the only ones present, because Carolyn had taken the three other girls to get their ears pierced—she did not feel Amelia was old enough yet to have hers done. Derek, Amelia, and Christopher had worked hard on the popsicle stick house. And, as per usual with the Shepherds, nothing about what they created was ordinary. It was more than just four walls and a sloppy-glued roof. They finagled a chimney, bay windows, a porch, and an overhang out of the sticks, and then added cut-in-half ones to serve as the stairs that led up to the porch. They painted it next—a rainbow's worth of colors—and wrote 5228 on one of the vertical sticks in front of the house, which was the same street number of their actual house.

(Christopher was murdered a few weeks after they completed the house. Amelia was very insistent that she did not want it anymore, so Derek gained sole custody of it. And, it has followed him everywhere since. Except to Seattle.)

"You could carry it, maybe?" Addison suggests when he continues to stare at the house with a slight frown on his face. She assumes he packed light enough—probably nothing more than a small carry-on—that his hands will not be too full when he boards his plane tomorrow. "I wouldn't risk shipping it."

"Yeah. Good idea." He smiles. "Not that it'll be weird for a grown man to be walking through LaGuardia with a popsicle stick house or anything."

"People will just think one of your kids made it for you." Addison tries to return his smile, tries so damn hard. You know, the ones we never had together, because the one time I got pregnant, it wasn't your baby.

(Derek started to pressure her around year eight of marriage. Not forcefully. Not threateningly. But still…pushy, it felt like. So Addison pushed back. She told him she wasn't ready. She wanted her practice to be more established. She wanted to finish her genetics fellowship first. And Derek seemed to understand that. She doesn't think that caused the distance between them, but it probably didn't help.)

(It was worse, in a way, when Derek dropped the subject of having a baby entirely. It felt like he had given up. On her, and on the marriage.)

The guest room comes next. The mattress, bedding, headboard, nightstand, lamp, patterned rug, floor mirror, and dresser can all go to Beth. That is easy. And everything else in the room, Addison suspects, will be easy too, because it is all likely clutter, which is meant to say that a lot of things in their house stopped having a place as time went on. There are two totes they shoved in the back of the closet several years ago, and there are also some clothes—old ones, mostly, and also ones of the snow-outing variety, from when they made the time to ski—in the dresser. It will not take much time to paw through what is left in this room. Nowhere near as long as it took to sort through everything downstairs.

What coaxes their attention first are the framed photos on the long, nine-drawer dresser. It has been a while since they have looked at them, and Addison is certain that Derek's eyes are tracking each one in the same way hers are; he seems vaguely interested in what lies before them. They proceed to shuffle sideways along the length of the dresser, studying the pictures. There is one of them in the Science & Engineering Library, with textbooks spread in front of them. There is one of them at a party a classmate threw to celebrate surviving step one of the USMLE. There is a picture of the two of them at Wagner Cove, after Derek proposed—Addison suspected it was coming when he suggested they head to a more private area of the park, but it still took her breath away when he got down on one knee. Her eyes were shining with happy tears in the photo that a passerby was kind enough to take of them. There is one of them at their wedding, exiting the Terrace Room as—for the first time—husband and wife, while their guests clap in the background. There is one of them on a checkered blanket in Sheep Meadow. There is one in front of the Point Judith Lighthouse in Narragansett, which is complemented by a picture of them in a skiff—this was what made it the place with the boat—that Derek took by holding the disposable camera out. There is one of them at the top of the Empire State Building, each with a brown bag. There is one of them in front of the brownstone—the realtor insisted they would want a picture to commemorate the day the home officially became theirs.

(Addison never thought she would have to commemorate—in her mind, somehow—the day she would officially leave the brownstone.)

(All the pictures on the dresser are old ones. It occurs to her that they had not taken many photos in recent years.)

"The Amelia filler," Derek says, and she makes a throat-humming sound of acknowledgement when they get to the pictures on the far side of the dresser. Addison had not really been thinking about the fillers as they traveled to the right, sort of but not quite doing the grapevine. She wanted to mentally catalog the ones of just them first. Those matter more to her. "It took us—how long to find it?"

"God, at least three months." She shakes her head. "It had to have been, because the total was like eighty-six or eight-seven dollars. I remember that."

Amy and Carolyn had come to visit them for a weekend not long after they were settled in the brownstone, and for some reason—in the sense that there usually wasn't a reason for why Derek's youngest sister did anything she did—Amy had brought a picture of herself and placed it smack in the middle of the pictures on the dresser. But she didn't say anything about it, because the point was to apparently not say anything, and see how long it would take her brother and sister-in-law to discover the addition. And, it took them a while.

"You owe me eighty-six dollars"—or eighty-seven, perhaps—"because I decided that every day you didn't see it was going to be another dollar," Amy had crowed when Derek called to inquire about the picture. Addison had stood next to him while he put the phone on speaker. "And that's actually a good deal!" Amy continued, still sounding triumphant. "I had bet that I was going to make at least one-hundred, because you don't really ever have to go into the guest room."

"I don't think it's actually a bet if the other party didn't know about the bet," Derek said. He had playfully rolled his eyes at Addison, who was equally perplexed by this odd, though funny development. "And we're keeping the picture, by the way. We like this one of you."

(They did put a check in the mail, because it had amused them so much, and they both had a habit—Derek especially—of overindulging a teenage Amy.)

The picture of Amy did prompt them to add other "fillers" to the dresser though, because it was really only then that Derek rightly pointed out he and Addison had sort of turned the guest room into a shrine to themselves.

So, they did add other pictures, slowly but surely. And Addison leans forward, taking in a few of them now. Derek is doing the same thing beside her. There is one of the whole group—that is what they were, honestly—at a restaurant following med school graduation; there is a smudge at the corner of the picture, courtesy of a waiter's thumb. There is one of them with Savvy and Weiss near the jewel-colored tulips in the Conservatory Garden. There is one of all the Shepherds, which had both legally and relationally at the time included Addison. There is a New Year's Eve picture at a party that featured a number of their then-peers, who were second year residents at New York Hospital. There is one of Addison and Archer on the tennis court. There is one of Derek holding Maya on her second birthday; she is wearing a 2 crown, and has pink frosting on her cheek. And then, at the very end of the dresser, there is a picture of Addison, Derek, and Mark in the Hamptons, sitting three in a row in Adirondack chairs; this was taken just two or three years ago. Derek looks happy in the shot, because for as much as he bitched about East Hampton, there were plenty of things he enjoyed about the area. He liked fishing at Georgica Pond, eating at a number of waterfront restaurants, going on hikes, and relaxing on the deck with a book in hand.

(The fractures in their relationship could not just be about busyness. Because they were always busy, weren't they? In those early years of marriage, when residency was all-consuming and their only choice was to respond in a machine-like way that often meant they could not leave the hospital at the same time…they still used to race home to each other. There was no desire to ever be apart.)

Addison waits. She waits for a reaction now—and not a nice one—because Derek has spotted the picture of the three of them. Mark was in the group dinner picture, and he was in the background of the New Year's Eve one too, but those could almost be overlooked, as it pertains to his presence; the one of them in the white chairs, however, is taken close enough that there is no such luxury. She has observed that her ex-husband and ex-whatever seem to be on better terms lately, but that does not necessarily mean anything. Not in this house, it doesn't.

"When you…lived together," Derek says haltingly. "Was it here, or at his place?"

(She almost laughs at the question. The idea of Mark making a sacrifice for anyone or anything.)

"His place." Addison pauses in anticipation, but there are no follow-up questions, so she does not offer additional information. She is not sure why Derek even wants to know, after all this time. She scrambles for something else to say, and finds herself desperately looking around the room. And, ah. There it is. "Derek." She lifts her chin in the direction of the guest bed, where there is a throw pillow with ruffled edges. A gray cloud is sewn into the fabric, and Every cloud has a silver lining is carefully stitched below it. "You have to keep that," she says.

Neither of them ever particularly liked this pillow—okay, maybe they even hated it—but Carolyn made it, so whenever she came to visit, Addison and Derek would display it on the guest bed. Carolyn last came to see them in March of 2005, and they ended up just leaving the pillow out after she left.

"I wish I didn't have to keep it," Derek responds, "but yeah, I know I do. It's just so cheesy. And—what's the word?—oh, chintzy. Yeah, it's chintzy."

"It is. But, sometimes that proverb is true. For as horrible as all of this was for you…if I hadn't slept with Mark, you wouldn't have Meredith." Addison is not sure where this boldness—this outright directness—is coming from. Maybe it's about being in this room. It's the guest room, which works, because they are now essentially guests in the brownstone. And maybe that stands to reason that she is not entirely herself. She is certainly passive-aggressive at times, but the real herself version of herself would probably not serve up this kind of comment. It's just not necessary. "So it worked out just fine for you, didn't it?" She sets her jaw as she regards Derek, whose expression has started to shift. But Addison carries on anyway when she adds, "There's your silver lining."

"I don't have Meredith. We're not…" he sucks in a large breath. "It's complicated. We're taking a break. Or she's taking a break from me."

"Oh." Addison is surprised to hear this. "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" He questions. His tone is cordial though when he says this.

"Yeah, I am." Not really. Or kind of. Addison is not happy about the news, but she's also not completely sorry to hear it, either. She decides she can add this to the moral inventory she needs to examine later.

"The organization Beth works for"—Derek is quick to find a new subject—"will they take the bedding too, or just furniture?"

"I'm not sure. I'm going to email her tomorrow to tell her what she can have…so I guess we'll find out if she's able to take the bedding. I mean, the duvet is only like two years old. The sheets are older, but they're still in good condition, and Greta would have washed them the last time she was here."

"Yeah. I guess they're not really that old." Derek looks over at her. "Thank you," he says. "This was a lot of stuff to have to go through by yourself." He offers a vague gesture with his hands, which makes it clear his statement is not specific to only this room. "And to just…plan out everything. I guess I didn't really think about that, when I said you could have both houses."

(That's an understatement. But it means something to Addison all the same.)

"You're welcome." She moves forward and retrieves the pillow, deciding to be helpful. "I'll bring a box up for these later," she reports as she brings the pillow to the corner of the room, where Derek has left the popsicle stick house, a paperweight, a Bowdoin hat, and a ski suit he grabbed from the dresser. Addison is having a hard time imagining he will pick up skiing again, but not everything about this man is familiar to her anymore, so she could be wrong.

When she twists back around, she sees that Derek has peeled back the duvet, which leaves a section of the sheets visible. The Italian ones with the paisleys. His fingers are gliding along the fabric now. These sheets were their "regular" set, but in the winter months, they would bring them to the guest room, swapping them for their flannel ones—the ones Derek claimed were his favorite—since they were warmer. Last year, they ended up keeping the flannel ones on their bed longer though. 2005 had featured a cold, dreary-tinged spring. In more ways than one.

"You know what?" Derek's eyes look a little sad when they meet hers. His palm has gone still now, resting flush against the swirl-patterned sheets. "I think I actually did like the paisley ones better."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Next chapter gets a little less this-item-that-item-this-item and a lot more smutty.