Skye is nothing like Heather. You can’t compare them. There are just … these things about Skye that fill me, that make me feel whole.

She’s got one of those old vintage turntables, and it’s her face when she puts on a record, the way the corners of her mouth poke up toward her ears as “The Stranger” fills the room. It’s how her eyelids grow heavy when she’s had a couple of negronis, the way it doesn’t bother me to watch her get drunk. It’s how nice she is to waiters, how thoughtful she is toward her friends, how diligent she is about work, and the way her whole face always seems to be on the verge of a smile. Skye is good at her job, but even though she won’t admit it, I can tell that book editing isn’t her passion. Not really. And I want her to find her passion. I’ve only known her six weeks and I want that for her. I want it for her even more than I want it for myself.

Skye has this thing she says about the way people laugh. She says a laugh is like a fingerprint, the way each one is unique to every person in the world. Isn’t that incredible? I love the way she makes observations like this that are so simple, but profound.

Skye thinks her OCD defines her, but it doesn’t. I’m not lying when I tell her that I’ve mostly stopped noticing her routines, but I don’t think she believes me. I don’t know how to get her to understand that she’s so much more than this stupid disease.

The thing is, Skye is vulnerable. Skye’s compulsion to knock on doors and wood and clocks in a specific method under certain circumstances is no easy cross to bear. It’s interruptive for her life, certainly. It’s the reason that she works from home as a freelancer. And it’s the reason some pretty horrible things have happened to her, most notably an ex who used Skye’s OCD to sexually assault her. When she told me that story, tears visible in the corners of her eyes, I was overcome with the desire to find this asshole and knock his teeth in, especially when she said she’d never pressed charges. She did report the incident to the jerk’s grad school, which thankfully resulted in his expulsion, but she didn’t want the reasoning made public. She said she’d been so insecure at the time, she hadn’t wanted to draw more attention to her OCD. I was practically fuming on Skye’s behalf, an anger so strong I couldn’t shake it until I saw my own reflection in the bathroom mirror and stopped, frozen with disgust. If this guy was bad, I was worse.

November 17, 2018

Last week I told Skye that I love her.

I hadn’t been thinking about it before I said it. We were sitting on her couch, listening to the Beach Boys on vinyl and talking, and I swear I could talk to her forever. I found myself telling her things about my past, straying far from the narrative I’d rehearsed. I told her about my drug and alcohol problems in high school, how I got sober senior year, and then how I relapsed during my second year at Credit Suisse.

I probably should’ve stopped there, but I didn’t. I don’t know, it just felt right to tell Skye about the incident with Doug Kemp, how he got off scot-free, my arrest, and the nightmare of a year I spent in prison. Once I started talking, it was like something cracked open inside me, and I couldn’t stop. I told her about the corrupt guards at MCC, the prolonged isolation, the filth, how cold it got in my cell at night, the interminable stretches of monotony punctuated by flashes of explosive violence. Things I’ve never told Heather. I didn’t even think about how horrifying it must’ve all sounded until I stopped rambling and saw the shell-shocked look on Skye’s face. Girls like Skye Starling don’t date ex-felons. But then her expression softened, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I am so sorry that happened to you,” she said. It was a simple response, but one that warmed the space behind my chest. No one had ever said that to me before. Heather was ecstatic when I got out of MCC, but she was equally furious at the financial position I’d put us in by losing my job. She’d certainly never asked for details or exhibited any sympathy toward me. I was starved for connection; I craved open dialogue, some gaping channel of release for my pain. I told Heather I wanted to try Alcoholics Anonymous, but she said AA was for suckers, and that I needed to land on my own two feet like a man. She dealt with my relapse and my year in prison by pretending it had never happened. We never even told the kids.

As liberating as it was to open up to Skye, it also felt strange to reveal the darkest part of my life without telling her the whole truth. Without being able to describe the pain of sitting helplessly behind bars while my daughter came into the world, while my son turned three and became a big brother.

As Skye smoothed the hair from my forehead and planted my face with kisses, I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for her, for whatever insane, appalling circumstances had brought her into my life.

I told her I loved her without a thought. When she pulled me in close and whispered it back, I felt a weight slide off my shoulders.

December 27, 2018

I’m home in New Haven for Christmas, and I feel like I’m cheating on Skye. Not only because I lied to her about my holiday plans—I said I was going to Phoenix to visit relatives—but physically, I feel like I’m cheating on her. I swear, Heather hasn’t been all over me like this since before we had kids. The prospect of money has always been an aphrodisiac. I wish there were a way to avoid having sex with her while I’m home, but the last thing I need is to make her suspicious. So I just have to deal with it for a couple more days; on Saturday I’m flying to Palm Beach to spend New Year’s with Skye and her family.

Of course, I hate to sound like that, because having Christmas at home with Garrett and Hopie and Mags is everything. Being away from the kids for such long periods feels unbearable at times, and lying to them is chipping away a piece of my soul. It’s a bizarre sort of comfort to know that despite the giant mess I’ve landed myself in, the love I have for my children still trumps everything.

The financial problems in our household are worse than I realized. Heather pulled me aside on Christmas Day, after we’d opened presents and the kids were vegged out on the couch watching Elf. She reminded me that I still hadn’t written a check for Hope’s second-semester tuition, and that we’d just received our third reminder from the dentist requesting the balance be settled for Hope’s dental implants, a whopping total of $19,000. For fake teeth. Heather explained that the money she’d been bringing in was only enough to cover groceries, electricity, and internet bills, and half the monthly mortgage payment. I nodded, swallowing the knowledge that the only money I have to my name is five grand in savings, and told Heather I would figure something out.

“Make something happen soon, Burke.” Heather folded her skinny arms across her chest. “Or else we’re fucked.”

We’re already fucked, I wanted to respond. But then Mags scrambled off the couch and clasped her hands around my middle. She looked up at me with wide green eyes, her blond hair pulled back—a mini-Heather—and said that having me home from Dubai was the best Christmas present she could’ve asked for. A swell of love surged through me and I had to blink back tears as I held my youngest daughter close. For the life of me I don’t know how I got here.

February 2, 2019

The groundhog saw his shadow this morning; looks like it’ll be six more weeks of frigid New York winter. But living with Skye, my heart is warm. Sometimes I imagine that our apartment is our own little cocoon, sealed off from the rest of the world. I like it best that way.

Outside West Eleventh Street, the pressure is building. Nothing has come of my (private) job search, and I’m starting to feel it’s a hopeless endeavor. I’m due in New Haven again at the end of February, and Heather says we need real money coming in by then. She says we got a notice from Eastern that if we don’t pay Hope’s second-semester tuition by the end of April, she won’t be able to graduate with the rest of her class in May. And I won’t let that happen—I just won’t. So I’ll do it, I’ll email Peter Starling and set up a time to meet him this week so that I can ask for Skye’s hand.

Some days I want to jump off the Empire State Building. I wouldn’t; I’d never do that to my kids or to Skye. To Skye! Look at me. Here I am, all protective of Skye and her well-being while simultaneously on the path to destroying her life. I can’t stand myself.

February 23, 2019