Twenty two
Friday
We go back to routine but things are different. This was not routine like we had before I found out about her infidelity. This is new. We are forming new habits every day, habits that show love and life, not the same old destructive words and deeds that marked our former life. That life drifts off into the haze, faded like it’s been out in the sun too long. The new is sharp and distinct and right and I want it more and more.
Quinn is held back late on Friday and this gives me time to prepare. I’ve got a taxi to pick her up from work so that she doesn’t have to walk home in the city at night. I hear the elevator arrive and she gets out, tired and hungry and not at all in the mood to go out.
But she doesn’t have to. The table is set just the way I see in my mind she would like it. I’ve taken out our best plates and silverware and glasses. There are candle in the centre of the arrangement and it flickers invitingly. The lights are dim and Miles Davis is playing quietly in the corner. I stand there, dressed up, waiting.
“Judd...” she says, a sweet but tired smile forming on her lips, “what is this?”
“Date night comes to you.”
She’s tired, I know she is, but she loves it. I take her coat, her handbag, put them on the lounge. “But I’m not dressed up,” she says.
“You don’t have to be. Just freshen up a little and come back.” I look at my watch. “Dinner is in five minutes.”
I’ve timed everything perfectly. I’m no cook but I can follow instructions. I have the roast beef and vegetables on the table by the time she returns. She’s changed out of her work clothes and into something comfortable but not without style. She sees the meal and her face lights up. I sit her at the table and joined her.
Later we sit on the lounge, her stretched out along it with me at the end. Her legs are on my lap and I massage her feet. The room is caught under candle light and the television remains still in the corner. We don’t speak for the longest time, simply enjoying each other’s company and the touch of skin against skin.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks me, finally, dreamily.
“That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“About what?”
“About me. About us.”
I take a deep breath. I hadn’t told her what had happened in my mind to bring us here. “I guess it started when I saw you at the hospital.”
“Oh,” she murmurs. She remembers it.
“I was still angry at you, really angry, for adding a baby to everything. I mean, she’s a blessing, and I see that now, but back then I saw her as the thing that would chain me to you forever and I couldn’t escape. I was hurt and betrayed and not even divorce was going to get you out of my life.”
“You hated me that much?”
“Yes, and no. I still loved you and that made seeing you painful beyond belief.”
“But you were so controlled.”
“Apparently I shut down. That’s what I do.”
She hums quietly. I’m not sure she’s agreeing or I’m giving her pleasure.
“Anyway, before that you called me, left that voice mail. You sounded so sad, so alone. And then you’re crying on the phone saying you’re bleeding, and you’re afraid and the only thing I can do is run to your side. I couldn’t help it. I had to be there, and not just for the baby.”
I start on the other foot.
“And then I see you on the bed and you’re scared and alone. You were saying all the things that I needed you to say, like you understand what you’ve done to me and you’re sorry – really sorry.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn says with a sigh. “I guess I just realised what I was missing. Wade was never going to be our baby’s father. That’s not him. But you... you came. You held my hand. I just realised then that I’d made a mistake - a big one. Then Wade gets there and I know I’m right.”
“I saw that. He’s kissing you and you’re almost pushing him away.”
“I guess I was. I think maybe I’d have broken up with him if he hadn’t first. Maybe I’d have tried to come back to you.”
“Anyway, I realised then that I had to forgive you. I was still hurting but I couldn’t stay angry at you and I couldn’t blame you anymore.”
“But at the Marriot you said that we didn’t need to be married.”
“I wasn’t ready to admit what I was starting to feel. I didn’t understand it. I needed to think. But you were so beautiful and alone and my heart was still broken and it was breaking all over again - for you. And so I stole Phillip’s Porsche and drove to Maine.”
“Why there?” she asks me quietly.
“I’ve always wanted to go up there. And maybe I thought I could start over in a place like that. But that was stupid. Its five hours away. What if you needed me? I’d be useless. Less than useless.”
“So you came back.”
“Yeah, but not after being there two days. I did some thinking. And I missed you. You were the one thing that I needed more than anything. I lost you and I didn’t know how I was going to get you back. And then Jen rang me and told me how you were. So I came home. I pretty much came here straight from Maine. And you sounded so broken on the phone when I got back.”
She was nodding. There were no tears now. We’d all but cried out ourselves over the last few weeks, but I was still sure there were more tears to come.
“And here we are,” I say. “I didn’t expect you to stay married to me and love me. I hoped for it, I wanted it more than anything, but I wanted you to want it. But whatever you wanted us to be, I was going to accept. And you said that you weren’t sure so I didn’t push you.”
“I know. You were forgiving and understanding and kind. That made a difference.”
“But none of that was trying to get you back. It was because I wanted to be your friend again.”
“I know, and we were friends then. But I guess I just started to love you more and more, and the counselling helped us. We needed that.”
“We needed that two years ago. I wish I listened to you.”
“I keep thinking that everything that’s happened to us has been exactly what we needed to bring us here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just mean that we were stagnating. We’d have either accepted a shitty marriage or broken up never to see each other again. I know Wade was a mistake – it was so wrong on so many levels – but it pushed us to make a choice. Our baby pushed us to make a choice. Now here we are.”
“You’re suggesting fate was playing with us?”
“Or some plan. Maybe god.”
“You don’t believe in god.”
“I never said that. I just didn’t think, if there is one, that he gives a crap about us.”
“Now you’re saying he does.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it is fate. I don’t know.” Then she laughs. “Do you want to hear something funny?”
“Sure,” I say.
“It’s something that happened that wasn’t fate or god or whatever.”
“Okay.”
“Well, actually, now I think about it, I kind of need to make a confession.”
“Crap... Really?”
“It’s nothing bad. Or maybe it is. I don’t know. I think maybe it’s a little devious.”
I look at her in the way that I do when I’m just about to hear something I’m not going to be pleased hearing. “Go on,” I say carefully.
“Okay,” she says, taking a breath. “Here goes. I guess that at some point I decided to make you fall in love with me again.”
She looks at me with wide eyes and raised brows. She waits for my response.
And it comes after a few seconds: “I said that still loved you.”
“That’s not what I meant. I decided to make you fall in love with me again. That crazy, makes-no-sense love. Like what we had when we were young.”
“I see. You sounded pretty confident.”
She s
miles. “I’ve done it before,” she tells me.
“Yes. But a lot has happened between then and now.”
“You like to think that you’re some kind of mystery, Judd, but you’re not. I’ve known you for a long time. I know what you like. I know how to turn your head.”
I nod. I feel my lips move into a slight smile. “That is true. And I guess you succeeded, because here I am, loving you against all sense or reason.”
Her face is pulled down into a frown. “Sorry?” she says.
“That didn’t quite come out right,” I tell her quickly. “That’s not what I meant to say.”
“What did you mean?” she asks me archly.
“I just meant that, after what we’ve been through, I shouldn’t be here. I mean really, when you think about it, us getting back together was the last thing that should have happened. If you were looking at my situation from the outside, what advice would you have given me, all things considered? Would you advise me to stay or run like hell?”
“I see your point.”
“This is a crazy love, Quinn, and I have no power to stop it. And I don’t want to.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“So when? When did you decide all of this?”
She smiles softly. “Remember when you came over the week after you came back? I remember how you looked when you stepped out of the lift, looking at me the way you did. You touched my belly. You touched our daughter. I remembered how you were when I was carrying our boy. All of those feelings, those memories came back to me, and I remembered what kind of man you are. I guess I fell in love with you again, right there. But I knew that there was like this unclimbable wall between us, but I wanted to love you again, and I wanted you to love me again too. Does that