"Mary Calmes still remains as one of my favorite M/M authors."
Reviewed by Annie Tegelan
Posted September 12, 2013
LGBTQ Romance
Oh Mary Calmes! This woman just knows how to write a good
story. Sivan Cruz and Walter Wainwright have been married
for seventeen years. But as you read the opening scene, you
realize that the marriage has fallen apart. It's the end
for these two and you wonder how on earth did these two get
there.
After that, the story backtracks a bit to 1996 where Sivan
and Walter first meet. Calmes tells the story of how they
first fell in love and how they came to be together in the
first place. It's a sweet, wonderful story but I don't
think it's my favorite of her work. There were a few
moments where I got tear-eyed at some of the more emotional
scenes about loss in this book. Calmes is so readily able
to manipulate reader's emotions that it nearly becomes
impossible not to feel for her characters.
Towards the middle, I think the story lost a little bit of
its focus and steam. However, I did think it packed a punch
for a short story. Calmes approaches this book in a very
unique story-telling way. I do believe that her writing has
gotten better over the years. She is simply magnificent in
capturing off-screen growth that whatever you see on-
screen, you can appreciate what the characters have
experienced even though it isn't told or shown in full on
words in STILL.
Mary Calmes still remains as one of my favorite M/M
authors. I will gobble up anything she writes!
Learn more about Still
SUMMARY
What happens when two men who have been together for
seventeen years fall out of love? Sivan Cruz, a set director
in San Francisco, and Walter Wainwright, a big shot Bay Area
lawyer, find out the hard way. Walter loves Sivan with all
his heart but rarely talks about it, and Sivan needs to hear
the words. The language of the love they have shared for so
long, that has enabled them to build a life together and
raise two children, stops working. They become�still. When Sivan asks for a divorce, Walter doesn�t know how to
say no. They separate, but while Sivan sees the relationship
as over, Walter sees only a temporary setback. He has never
lost his passion for Sivan and decides he has to say
something before he ends up loving his husband in silence
for the rest of his life.
ExcerptI USED to be so normal. I had a minivan. I drove children to
school and soccer practice and karate lessons and football
and ballet. Even though I'm only an okay cook, I did it. I
picked up dry cleaning and took the dog to the vet. I have
countless videotapes of swim meets and football games, piano
recitals and camping trips. There was never enough money to
blow, and some things that should have been repaired or
replaced were not, the money going instead to pay for braces
and prom pictures and saving for college. We turned a blind
eye to whatever wasn't an emergency. As a result, the house
deteriorated, the car suffered, and in the end, most of all,
a marriage crumbled.Life is less about time and more about patterns. We step
into familiar interactions with people, and regardless of
whether they are healthy, we tend to stick with them until
the day comes when we can't stay silent or blow up or yell
and scream even once more. On that day you stop, realizing
you're doing things because of comfort and convenience, not
because you're in love. In that moment, you look across the
room at the person in it up to their eyeballs with you,
throw up your hands, and call it what it is, the end. "What?" he flared from where he leaned against the kitchen
counter. I felt a surge of feeling for him at that moment. He was my
war buddy. "Honey, let's get a divorce." Long silence, and for a split second I regretted my words.
We had seventeen years together, after all. We had struggled
together, raised two beautiful kids together. We both had
known that we were done for so long, but we'd stuck it out
for Chloe and Declan. People said it was bad to stay
together for your children, but being apart, shuttling them
between two homes, didn't seem like the best scenario
either. They'd lived that when they were small, even though
neither remembered. So we had toughed it out through silences that stretched
into weeks, screaming matches waged behind closed doors, and
an ever-widening gap of intimacy. It wasn't that we weren't
having sex anymore, but that was the only constant. We
didn't touch or give quick pecks on the cheek for hello and
good-bye; we didn't hold hands. He didn't need to touch me
outside our bedroom, and that in itself was sad. We could
both sleep like logs in the middle of a fight, and it became
normal for me to fall asleep reading a book on the couch,
working on a design on my laptop, or watching a movie with
our dog. Being an attorney, working his way up the ladder at
the firm, he kept long hours, so it was inevitable that we
became those ships that passed silently in the night. It was
only when I would need him or he would want me that we felt
any connection at all. But sex alone cannot save a relationship. It was over--we
were roommates with benefits, not even friends, and we
didn't have to be. We could afford our own places; we could
share our kids and not even have to pretend we liked each other. I took my ring off to clean the rain gutters six months ago
and never put it back on. "Hello." I realized my mind had been drifting back over close to two
decades. His sigh sounded long and annoyed. "That's what you want,
you want to end us? You want a divorce?" So clinical. "Jesus, Walter, don't you?" I was exhausted. He
had to be done too. He stared at me. "It seems like you need a change." I pointed at him. "You do too. Don't switch this around on
me. You know you hate me just as much as I hate you." His mouth pulled into a dark scowl. "You hate me?" "Some parts of you I do. Some parts of you absolutely melt me." His face softened. "You're a fantastic father," I continued. "But a crappy husband?" "And I've been a worse one." And I had been. I knew I was
selfish. "You never cheated on me." "Which makes me loyal, not good." I exhaled deeply. "You
deserve better, and I..." "You want somebody else?" "I don't want to feel bad anymore. I want the weight off. I
don't want to see the disappointment on your face every
single day of my life. Nobody hates me as much as you." "I don't hate you." I started to walk out of the room. "I think one of us should
keep the house...where the kids grew up, and now that
they're both away at school, they need a place to come home to." "Wait." I turned to him. "You can have it. I'm gonna move to
Chinatown. Rachel has a loft to show me. I mean, it makes
sense, it's closer to work. The commute from here to the new
job every day is a pain in the ass." "You love this house." I sighed regretfully, because the house in Potrero Hill had
been my dream when we first bought it, after he sold his and
I was able to come up with my half of the down payment. "I
used to. I loved it when we first moved in, I loved it when
the kids had sleepovers with their friends here, I loved it
when we had family game night or movie night, I loved it
when we had parties here and when you..." "When I?" His voice was gravelly and low. "I loved it when you liked me." "Siv" "I don't love it now," I said sharply, closing the door on
the past. "Okay." "And I don't need money. I don't need half your retirement
or any of that crap. We're good, Walter. We'll both help the
kids with school, all right? That's all that's important." "And if I find somebody new, you're okay with me having
another man in this house?" I still had to think about it. "Yeah." "Yeah?" The truth of the matter was, for all his faults, Walter was
stunning and would not be lonely for long. The second we
were done, a line of men would form around the block to be
the next guy in Walter Wainwright's bed. "Siv?" I glanced up at my husband. "We were happy here for so long.
Why wouldn't I want you to be happy again?" He stared at me and I realized, as I always did, that his
eyes were so beautiful. "You don't love me anymore at all,
do you?" "That's not true." "If you loved me, no other man could ever have me," he claimed. "I only want you to have what you want." "It's a cop-out." "Its the truth." "You used to be so possessive." "I used to be a lot of things." It seemed as though he was waiting for me to say something,
from the way he was leaning forward like he did when he was
listening intently. "Walter?" The sudden drop of his shoulders signaled defeat, and I
pounced, ready to drive my point home. "You know you agree with me," I stated. His mouth opened like he was going to say something, but he
shook his head instead. His disgust was obvious: I was a
quitter. "Do whatever you think is right." "Fine," I snapped, annoyed and suddenly so sure of my plan.
"I will." And I did.
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