Weeks - Episode 14 - "Twenty Five"
Written by J.D.Denisson.
A sequel to the movie "This is Where I Leave You".
Characters and back story based on the novel "This is Where I Leave You" by Jonathan Tropper.
Copyright 2016 J.D.Denisson.
Previously?
She reaches over and takes my hand, looks me in the eyes. "I'm sorry that I put my unresolved feelings of abandonment onto you. It was unfair and it was one of the things that pulled our marriage apart. Can you forgive me?"
I nod, smile, squeeze her hand.
She breathes heavily. "That was the easy part."
"That was easy?"
She nods. "I know that you'll forgive me. You said you would and I trust you. The hard part is talking to my father."
I get that. Quinn's father is a staunch protestant minister. He believes in the bible and truth and the sanctity of marriage. He scares me, he always had - right from the day she brought this cocky Jewish kid to meet him for the first time.
"When are you going to do that?" I don't want her to do it alone.
"I don't know," she says. "It might take me some time to build up the courage."
I nod, my face serious. "Well, you won't have to do it by yourself. I'll come with you."
?
"You don't think Judd can change?" Mary asks her.
"I do," she says with a sigh. "I know he can. And I'm seeing it. I just worry about later, when we've got a new baby and we're tired and he leaves me at home alone every day for work."
"That's why I'm here," I say again. I think it's self-explanatory, but I feel the need to point it out over and over. What else can I do?
"Judd," Grant begins, "you said that you don't know any other way."
I nod.
"So, why do you think that is?"
"His whole family is like that," Quinn jumps in and Mary admonishes her.
"She's right," I say. "They are. Except for Phillip." Quinn murmurs her agreement. "It's the way we are."
"Why is that, do you think?" Grant asks me.
"I don't know. I guess we stopped talking about things about ourselves." Then I stop. I know why. "The book," I say under my breath.
"I'm sorry. What?" Mary says.
"The book," I say louder now. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me."
Quinn's mouth is open. Her eyes are wide. "The book," she says.
?
They're all looking at me. They're all looking at my ring and saying nothing. Phillip knows but he's holding his tongue, but I can see that it's killing him.
"Okay," I say after ten minutes of looks and glances and unspoken words. "Let's just get this out in the open," I tell them. I don't want a repeat of last time when I told them all, and a room full of visitors, that I was divorcing her. "Quinn and me are working though our problems. We're seeing some people and it seems to be working. Yes, I'm wearing my ring. No. I'm not getting divorced. Yet."
?
Quinn is crying. She sits forward with her head in her hands, leaning over. I have my arm around her, running my hand up and down her back - because she needs it, and because for once I'm not the source of her pain. She sits up again after a while and I take her hand in mine while she wipes away tears with the other.
"He would just go, for months at a time. I didn't know if he'd ever come back," she says.
"You know what he was doing?" Mary asks.
Quinn nods. "Church work. All over the country. Overseas. But I was six and I didn't understand why he couldn't be home with us. And then we he was he couldn't be near us. I... I know he didn't want me bothering him. He'd go in his office all day and not come out and spend any time with me. I didn't understand that either."
"What about later?"
Tears are running down her cheeks again. I didn't know that the human body could hold that much inside it. Apparently grief and pain causes a lot to be made, ready for release.
She shakes her head. "When I was older... I didn't know him, he didn't know me. We couldn't talk. We'd speak but... there was nothing between us."
I remembered Quinn's father walking her down the aisle to me. It was his duty that he took very seriously, but I could see that there was no love between them. I can still she them dancing at the party afterwards, stiff and formal, the both of them hardly looking at each other.
?
"So how did this affect you and Judd, do you think?" Mary asks her.
My heart sinks, but I'm holding on to her. This is important. We need to face this even though now I'm under the microscope again.
She wipes her tears away again. "I suppose after we lost our baby Judd stopped holding me, stopped grieving with me. I felt hurt and abandoned, just like back then. I thought he didn't want me anymore because I couldn't carry his baby - and when we didn't get pregnant again I felt such a failure. I felt like I deserved him abandoning me. I thought he would at any moment. I thought he'd find someone else, a better wife, a better mother."
?
I guess I was living two lives. In one, I'm married to Judd and I still love him, and I'm so sad that things are bad between us, and I'm feeling so guilty for being with Wade, and I feel like there's nothing I could do to stop it or make it right. In the other life, I love Wade and we're together and everything is good and right, and I'm feeling nothing but anger towards Judd for ignoring me and hurting me.
I got very good at lying. I was lying to Judd, I was lying to myself. I was telling myself that I could keep these two lives separate but I should have known that I couldn't forever. I should have known that everything that I was doing was going to destroy everything that was ever good in my life. I should have known that the truth would destroy Judd - destroy our marriage and our future. I should have known. Maybe I did. Maybe I just didn't care.
?
"You did your homework," Stewart tells us. "That got us across the line. But guys, you're going to have to give us one mother of a show. Can you do that?"
"We can do that," Wade says with a grin.
"Wait a minute," I say. "Before we agree on anything, are we talking the same arrangements I brought to you?"
"More or less."
"What about our contracts?"
"They're still being honoured, for now."
"Damn," says Wade after exhaling deeply.
"But don't blow it," Stewart warns us, but I don't need it.
"When does it start?" I ask him.
"Next week. We'll announce the changes later today and we plan the restructure. But until this comes in, no screwing things up, right? No fighting on air." He's looking at Wade's swollen face and my swollen, bandaged hand.
"Well," Wade says with a slight smile, "technically that wasn't on air."
Twenty five
Monday
Quinn has breakfast for me when I get up. It's a big day. Wade and I are working our new show, and anything can happen. I'll be down there around nine, after I drop Quinn off to work.
We make the four blocks in ten minutes. The morning traffic is heavy.
"Hey?" she says, as were near the front of her building.
"Hmmm," I say back, watching cars and busses fly to and fro around us.
"I think we should drive down to Elmsbrook this weekend after the session."
"Why?" I ask suspiciously.
"I have to face your family sooner or later."
"True, but..."
"But...?"
"Do we really need that kind of stress?"
"I can handle it if you can."
"I suppose," I agree hesitantly. I'm not sure I can handle Quinn and m
y family together in the same room.
"Anyway, I said I wanted to announce that we're pregnant."
"Believe me, they already know."
"I know that. I mean officially. It'll be hard, but they need to welcome me back and congratulate us."
I'm not saying anything. I'm trying to stay on the road, keep us alive.
"And I have to congratulate Alice."
"Okay."
"And I want to talk to your mother."
I'm remembering a session several weeks ago. Now I know why she's mentioning this now, while I'm driving.
"You're not going to cause trouble," I tell her.
"Me?" One of her brows is up in that sweet way she does when she wants to disarm me.
"Promise me you won't call her out on her parenting."
Quinn says nothing. Her building appears and I pull over.
"Promise me," I say again, urgently this time.
She smiles, kisses me in the way she does that makes me forget what I was saying and gets out. A horn sounds behind my car.
"Alright!" I yell to no one within earshot, and pull out and head to the station.
Wade is on fire. I'm amazed that the man can pull out some fantastic stuff when he has to. All too often I think the worst of him because, let's face it, he shows his worst most of the time. Sleeping with my wife had to be the lowest point. But not today.
When we're done, we can hear the applause from the office floor. Stewart comes in and takes us out there. Wade bows and accepts the adulation readily. I take a few hardy back slaps and hand shakes and head back into Wade's office. It's later in the day than I'm used to and I'm not sure what Quinn is doing. I send her a message, telling her all went well. But I'm not stupid enough to think that we're out of danger. You are only as good as your last show and contracts are coming up for renewal. We need to keep up the heat.
I pick Quinn up