Free The Stories We Tell by Patti Callahan Henry Page B

to come home. The swelling is subsiding, and today I’ll meet with the neuro practitioner and try to understand her medical babble. Thank God for the handouts; I can read them over and over without having to pretend I understand.
    Willa weeps over the hospital bills. “I’ve become exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t be when I came here—a burden,” she says over and over, forgetting that she’s already told me.
    Cooper is trying to return to his before-the-accident life; he’s back at work, but only part-time. The stitches won’t come out for another week, and he hides the damage beneath tightly taped bandages. Soon, the doctors tell us, it will be time to plan and discuss plastic surgery. Cooper doesn’t talk about embarrassment or his need to cover the scars, but I’ve seen him in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, with his thumb and forefinger pinched around the threads of a stitch, as if any moment he is going to pull at the black thread and undo it all. But then he shaves and dresses, has a cup of coffee and a single egg on wheat toast. He leaves for work as if the day at hand is like all the days before the wreck.
    This is one of the things I love about him—his ability to keep going, his tenacity, his drive to get things done no matter the circumstances.
    *   *   *
    When Cooper started Southern Tastes, digital magazines were the next big thing. His affinity for all things male and southern—hunting, fishing, bourbon … all the accouterments of a well-bred gentleman—filled the pages of the publication. It seemed the perfect fit: a man from the South with all the right personal contacts and a business degree. Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid relocated to Savannah.
    Last year, when the first article came out about how tablet magazines were failing—how the “platform that would redefine consumer consumption” had turned into a lukewarm business venture—Cooper went into overdrive. He turned everything to high gear: his charm, his frustration, his creativity, and his travel. But success seems to be slipping away in incremental shifts, in decreased subscriptions and advertising money. He’ll gain an advertiser and then lose two. He’ll add a new creative section—“Home Place” for example, a section devoted to small towns—and then find that the readers don’t resonate with the idea.
    I watch him at night, his brow furrowed, his face jaundiced by the light of the computer, and I wonder what he thinks and feels. It’s easy to take his moods personally, but I know how worried he is about this business he started, the one that separated him from his dad’s business. He clicks away on the keys, writes notes on a yellow legal pad. When I ask, “Can I help?” or “Is there anything I can do?” he’ll shake his head no. “I got this,” he’ll say. Cooper has used that phrase since our first date. And it’s been true. He’s got it—always. There’s a certain relief in partnership when a task is handed over, when the weight of something is lifted and carried. For me, this was the family finances. He pays the bills, chooses the investments, and leaves the paperwork for me to review. I’m perfectly capable of handling money, but it’s still one less thing to do in an endless and vast list of things I’m responsible for.
    In a world I know Cooper never thought he’d see, the balance of success has tipped—the Fine Line, Ink is faring far better than Southern Tastes, and yet we’ve not once discussed the situation. This silence is a private pact, some marital contract that I don’t remember signing. But I understand. I keep my business accounts separate and put my assigned salary into the family account. Cooper does the same.
    He’s got it, he says. He always does. It’s true—he’s