Kathy Stabler struggled to quell her silent tears. She was finally, for the first time in far too long, getting a look at her husband's true emotions, and she hadn't realized he was still capable of being hurt that deeply.
"You left me first," she said, trying not to sound like a petulant child.
"Kathy, I . . ."
"You always came home when you were off duty, I know that," she said, "but you never left your job at work."
She paused, chewing her bottom lip for a moment and stopped when she recognized it as one of his little idiosyncrasies that she had picked over twenty years of marriage and a lifetime as friends. She didn't want to hurt him, but he'd asked for the truth and something about his tone of voice said he was really ready to listen this time. It might be too late for them, but if it would help him be happy with someone else in the future, well, she wanted him to be happy if he could. She still loved him.
"I remember the first time it happened. You had this horrible case. Some girl's father had tied her to the bed and forcibly impregnated her with another man's sperm. I kept trying to distract you, telling you what the kids had done that day, kissing you and touching you the way you like it. I was trying to make love to you, but you weren't even home."
"Kathy, once in a while there's just a really awful case . . ."
"But it wasn't just once in a while, Elliot," she broke in. "Once in a while I could understand. Once in a while I could explain to the kids, but more and more you came home and had less and less to do with us. Then you started spending the night in the city when you didn't even have to work."
She knew that was partly her fault. When she got fed up with him shutting her out, she had turned cold. The way she had treated him the last year of their marriage, she couldn't have been much fun to come home to, but maybe if he had made the effort a little more often, if only for the kids' sake, she could have warmed up to him again.
"When she got her license, Maureen took over as the second parent in the family and you never noticed, El. Do you know that? You never noticed that Kathleen didn't need you to practice for soccer with her anymore or that the twins didn't ask you for help with their homework. There were no more games to attend, or school plays, concerts, or dance recitals for you to go to. No one asked you to pick them up from detention. This family went on without you, and you never even noticed!"
"Kathy I . . ." He stopped. He wanted to deny it, but he knew she was right. He felt like he'd been hit with a bag of hammers. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did!" she sobbed, "But you couldn't, or didn't, or didn't want to hear it. The night I left, I wasn't angry. I just finally saw that there was no point in staying."
"What do you mean?" He was stunned. He knew he wasn't hearing this for the first time, but it was still news to him.
Now that she was in full flow, she really cut loose. She wasn't angry, but she was hurt and upset. She wasn't trying to hurt him, but she had so much to say.
"Some girls were talking about their husbands and boyfriends at work. One guy was obsessed with his boat and always called it by name like it was the QEII or something. Another was addicted to Tetris; he'd actually given himself carpal tunnel syndrome but hadn't stopped playing. My friend Genie told us her husband Roy cracked the knuckles in his toes when he got up every morning.
"Then they asked me about you, and all I could tell them was that you're still the sexiest man on the planet, you're decent and honorable, and you work way too many hours. Elliot, it was embarrassing, and it occurred to me then that I was living with a stranger. That's why I left, El, because you had become so distant that I didn't know you anymore."
"Oh, God, Kathy, I'm so sorry," he whispered into the phone. He wasn't exactly crying, but big tears kept squeezing out of his eyes and sliding down his cheeks.
"I guess, with the job I have to keep shutting down parts of myself so I can go on working, and, I don't know, maybe I just shut down so much that I had nothing left for you and the kids. But I still love you, Kath."
"I don't know that you do, Elliot," she said, trying to be gentle but honest. "I think you want to, and I suppose the capacity to do so still lies within you somewhere, but I don't think you've really loved anyone or anything for a long time. Like you said, you've shut down so much that you have nothing left."
He sniffled and grabbed a tissue from the box on the end table beside him. "That doesn't mean I've stopped loving you," he insisted.
"Then tell me what it feels like," she requested.
"Huh?"
"Tell me what love feels like. Do you remember?"
"I . . ." He didn't have any words to reply. He could have used any one of thousands of metaphors that had bombarded him in the media over a lifetime, but none of them described any kind of feeling he could remember having. He was lonely, and he was sad, and he was angry a hell of a lot, but she was right, he couldn't remember what love felt like.
For several moments, he sat there panting in shock and dismay. Then he gasped, "Tell me how to fix this, Kathy."
"Oh, Elliot," she began sadly. "It's too late. We've . . ."
"NO!" he cut her off emphatically. "Maybe we needed to end it, so we could start over. I can understand you not wanting to try again right now, but I'm not ready to give up. I know everything that was wrong was mostly my fault, but that doesn't mean that I can't be a better husband, a better father, a better person. Maybe in a few months or a few years, when you see that I really can change, you will want to try again, and I'll be ready. Either way, Kath, I need to do something. I just can't go on feeling this . . . hopeless."
His voice died to a whisper on the last word and she felt a chill.
"Please, Kathy," he pleaded softly. "Tell me what to do. Tell me what you want me to do."