sticking together, bringing your marriage back from the edge. You guys are such an inspiration.”
She keeps talking because maybe she’s nervous. Maybe Wade has told her the whole story. Maybe she doesn’t know about the three of us at all. I want to know, but I don’t want to ask. But then Quinn hinted that she knew. She said there would be no weirdness between us, so she had to know something.
“Thanks,” Quinn says when I’m silent.
“I know we’re going to be the best of friends.”
I’m not sure about that. I still want to keep Quinn away from Wade, but I’m not sure I can stop this train now it’s rolling down the tracks. I want to get off at the next station but I don’t think it’s going to stop.
All the while my mind is working in the background, thinking about Grant and what he’s asking of me. It seems that Wade is happy now with Chloe, but I’m getting a different vibe. She knows what her husband is like, what he’s done in the past, and she’s nervous. She’s invited us so that she can see Quinn first hand and gauge the threat. She’s young and insecure and needs something to reassure her. She needs Wade to be a husband and I’m still not sure he can be one. I’m looking down on him now, thinking I’m better than him, a better husband, a better man, but really I’m not sure any of us can live up to that ideal, so maybe I’m not all that different from him after all. I’m just getting help where he’s just making it all up as he goes along and hoping for the best like I had done all those years. In some respects it was true when I said it won’t last because it probably won’t, and the thought of that starts to make me a little sad.
“So, Quinn, do you know what you’re having? Or is it a secret?”
“A girl,” Quinn says.
“Goody. I can shop for a girl. That’s easy.”
“I don’t need anything yet.”
“It’s never too soon to get things for the baby. Have you started on the room yet?”
Quinn looks at me, I look at her. I’m living in the baby’s room at present, and really we’ve had other things on our minds.
“Not yet.”
“Well, at least you’ll know what color to paint the walls. I feel so happy for you, getting the cot and the change table and the clothes.”
I suddenly have a pang of regret for Chloe. She’ll never have a child with Wade. He’ll never be able to look into his own baby’s eyes and see that they’re like his. They’ll never be able to say that their boy is like his father. I’ve lost things in my life, but I can have a future that is filled with children. Wade can never have that, and Chloe can never have a baby with her husband. It broke my heart.
“What?” Quinn asks me, leaning in. I’ve let my thoughts show on my face.
“Nothing,” I say. “I’ll tell you later.”
And so the dinner goes on and we talk. It’s not weird at all and I feel that we’re starting to become friends. I’m seeing a different Wade when he’s with her and I can see some hope between them, and I’m still feeling the loss of their future. Quinn and I leave better than we arrived, head home in my Jeep through to the other side of the city, to where the normal people live.
“What were you thinking at dinner?” Quinn asks me. We’re in bed and she’s in my arms, her head on my chest and her arm resting in between my neck and my shoulder, where she belongs. Her long fingers trace lines on my skin like she’s writing a love song.
I tell her and she sits up, balances her head upon her elbow that rests in the centre of my sternum.
“Really?”
I mummer a yes and she looks at me thoughtfully.
“That hadn’t occurred to me,” she confesses.
“It hadn’t to me either, not until right then.”
“And she called you his friend.”
“Yeah. I am, I guess. I mean, I sure as hell didn’t want to be, but I suppose I am.”
She bends down and kisses me tenderly.
“What’s that for?”
“I love you, Judd.”
“I love you too.”
“No, you don’t understand. Before you said you’d change, but to be honest, I never saw it. But now I see it. Every day you show me you have and it surprises me and I love you for it. Every day I love you a little more for what you say and do.”
“Thanks.”
“It had to be hard, being there, seeing me and him in the same room.”
“It wasn’t easy, but I guess once I realised what was actually happening that just... vanished. But honestly, I’m not that worried anymore. I trust you. I know that you’re in this with me all the way. I know you won’t wreak that again. Wade, well, he’s still Wade but I also think he’s different now.”
“But there’s more to this, isn’t there?”
She knows me. I love her for that.
I nod. “Grant wants me to speak life into his marriage.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’ve got help him to get his marriage to grow.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want some suggestions?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s my assignment.”
She starts to laugh.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“Do you want to hear something funny?”
“Always.”
“Mary had a little assignment for me too.”
“I suspected as much.”
“She wanted me to pray for you.”
“What?”
“Pray,” Quinn says again. “I said I wasn’t religious, and she said that’s okay. The exercise is to think about someone else, you actually, and pray for them every night.”
“Pray to God?”
“Whoever. God, the universe, it doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m to pray for you, that you have the best; that you’re safe; that you’re loved and wanted and cared for.”
“And how’s that going?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? Do you feel all those things?”
“Yeah,” I tell her happily.
“Then it must be working.” Then she looked at my wickedly. “I was praying right before I paid you a visit the other night.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I was praying about you and I thought that I should give myself to you without getting anything in return. So I did.”
“But you did get something in return.”
“I know,” she says with a wicked little laugh, “I just can’t help myself.”
Thursday
The Uptons can’t see us this week. Their holding a workshop upstate for the weekend and Quinn and I feel adrift. It had to happen sooner or later. Eventually we’d have to manage on our own. The weekend suddenly looked free and full of possibilities.
But I’d been thinking the following day after our dinner with Wade and his wife, thinking of how I could help them, and the answer came to me. It was so simple I’m kind of ashamed that I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
I make Wade wait in the office while I ring Quinn at work.
“Judd,” Quinn whispers into the phone. “You can’t ring me like this. You know they don’t like it.”
“Sorry,” I say, “but I want to run something by you quickly before I do anything.”
“What?” she asks quickly.
“This workshop on the weekend… do you want to go?”
She’s said the last few days that she was glad for the weekend off but there was a little regret in her voice. I knew what he answer would be, but this was not what I was asking.
“Yes. You want to go?”
“Of course I do.”
“You want to invite Wade and Chloe, right?”
“What?”
“I was going to suggest it myself, but you said you wanted to work it out yourself.”
“How did you know?”
“I know you, Judd Altman. Go ahead and ask them.”
“What if he says no?”
“If he does
then I’ll ring Chloe. Problem solved.”
I laugh. We’ll get them back for the dinner invitation debacle.
“Anyway,” she says quickly. “Gotta go.” And she hangs up.
I go online and check where the workshop is being held, ring up the retreat and check the availability for two rooms. I’m in luck and I book them. Then I go and see Wade who’s impatiently waiting for me.
“What is it?” he asks me.
“Free your weekend,” I tell him.
“What? Why?”
“You and Chloe are coming with us to a marriage workshop.”
“What?” he says, looking confused.
I explain things a little. I leave out Grant’s assignment.
“Hey, man, this is not my thing,” he says quickly.
“It’s not my thing either, but it’s kind of important. You’ll understand that, believe me.”
“I don’t know...”
“Look, if you say no, Quinn will just ring Chloe and you’ll have to go and she will be pissed with you for saying no in the first place. Trust me, it’ll be far better just to accept the inevitable and say yes now and suck it up.”
He sighs. “I won’t have to do anything weird, will I?”
“Anything could happen.”
He swears under his breath, accepts the inevitable, and calls Chloe to make the arrangements.
Friday
We drive to the workshop in a two car convoy. Quinn and I are in her Jeep and Wade and Chloe ride behind in one of his sports cars, his Jag to be precise. I want to still have the Porsche but its back with by brother. We’re in front so the Wade doesn’t leave us behind. I want us to get there at the same time.
We arrive well after dinner but there are still people about. Registrations are still going on and the girls attend to that task while Wade and I handle our rooms.
I head back over to Quinn and Chloe while Wade finishes with the front desk. They’re head together in conversation when I get there, and Chloe breaks away and goes