from out the front of her building. She climbs in slowly, like she's carrying a little more weight, which she is.
"Went well, huh?" she asks me, but of course she already knows.
I nod and pull back out into traffic. It's busy again. The afternoon bustle has begun. We'll be home in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.
"About this morning..." she starts.
"It's fine."
"I promise I won't harass your mother."
"Its fine," I say again, and am instantly aware that I need to say something else for this to be a conversation. "Harass her if you want. The rest of us do."
"I have something else in mind."
"Oh? What's that?"
"Never you mind. This is between your mother and I."
I let it go.
"And there's something else..." she tells me hesitantly.
"Okay..."
"We need to go see my folks too."
Now I'm feeling a little apprehensive. I don't know what it is, but I've always felt that Quinn's family don't like me. Maybe they think I'm not good enough for her. As it turned out, they were right to some extent. But heaven knows what she said to them after we broke up. Did she lie, or was she absolutely truthful.
"Dad's still not talking to me," she adds sadly.
"I'm sorry."
"This will make you laugh," she says. "He was actually one of the only people I told that stood up for you."
"What?"
"I know. But he did. I told him that I'd left you and I've got a new man in my life and... well, he just got up, told me that he was ashamed of me and walked out and I've haven't spoken to him since. He wouldn't even look at Wade."
"Did you tell him everything?"
"Yes."
"Damn."
She murmurs agreement and looks out the window. I can tell she's upset again. I guess she had no idea of the far reaching ramifications of her actions.
"So..." I begin.
"Can we drive over Wednesday after work?"
"Fine by me."
"Mom's putting on a roast. She knows you like that."
Quinn is tired tonight. I make her dinner and run her a bath so that she can soak and relieve her tired legs. The bathroom is bathed in candle light and quiet, cool music intrudes from the lounge room. She undresses while I'm standing there and I take in the full measure of her - all her wonderful curves, her beautiful growing form.
Her belly has grown a lot. She places a hand under the bump to steady herself. The new life inside her makes her all the more inviting, the way her abdomen rounds, the way it holds such vitality. I want to kiss her, kiss our baby underneath, place my hands around her from behind and hold them, two in one.
I'm looking at her beautiful and naked. She is my wife and I want to look at her with delight, knowing that she is all mine and no other's. And this is true, despite what has come between us, because as we walk through this time of purification we'll be new again at the end and it will be like it never happened. I know there will always be bad memories, but they will fade in the face of time and love.
So I don't touch her. I just help her into our bath and sit next to her on the cold tile floor and talk.
"Can I tell you something?" she says, her hands swishing in the steaming water.
"Sure," I say dreamily.
"You inspire me."
"I what?"
"You inspire me. Your bravery inspires me."
"I'm not brave," I tell her quickly.
"Yes, you are. You came back to me when you didn't know what I'd say or do. You forgave me, even though I did terrible things to you. You forgave Wade and now you two are doing great things at work. You're helping him and Chloe. They're all brave things."
"Can I be honest..."
She rolls over and leans over the side. He shoulder is wet and glistening in the candle light and I want to kiss it. I want to kiss her lips. "I think I can handle it," she says quietly.
"I'm scared, Quinn. I'm frightened all the time. I'm afraid that all this is a dream and I'm going to wake up and you'll be gone and my life is shit again. So I'm not brave. I'm a scared little kid who's good at pretending."
She smiles warmly. "I know. I'm scared too. But you face those fears. You face them for me and our little girl, and I love you so much for doing that."
I lean over to her and kiss her like I wanted to. She wraps he wet arms around my neck and pulls me closer.
"Want to get in?" she asks me with a wicked smile.
And I do. So much. But I shake my head and say: "soon."
"You spoil my fun," she accuses me playfully.
I laugh and stand up, look at her naked back and delicious, rounded bottom, and I almost relent.
"You behave," I tell her. And I start to the door.
"Where are you going?" she demands.
"Too much of you naked just drives me crazy," I explain. "And I've got to check on dinner."
We eat happily. It's been three and a half months since I came back to try and win her and here I am. We're getting better. We're talking. We love each other. We're going to renew our marriage. It's crazy to think that everything could have changed in that amount of time. But then it really wasn't that fast. After she found out about our baby she was having second thoughts about Wade, second thoughts about abandoning her marriage. I was being truthful when I said that I wasn't a good husband, but people can change if they have a mind to, if they're determined enough. And I was - I am - determined enough. I'm the poster boy of determined.
Quinn retires early to read. I go to my bed and start on the book that arrived today. I'm trying to get a head start on the weekend with my family.
As I lay there, on my bed alone, in the dark, I remember what Quinn had told me about her praying for me, and how Grant had spoken about words of life. They were one and the same, it seemed to me. Praying for someone was like speaking life filled words, at least to God or the universe or someone up there who directs our lives. These words change our thinking too, because you can't pray for someone and not have that work out in the way that you deal with them. I've been speaking good words to Quinn and she's been praying for me. I had to admit all of that was working. And I'm thinking of the timing and I know that Grant and Mary are working to some sort of plan and they're intentional about what they're getting us to do.
And I think of our future, and what I want. Do I want any changes? Do I see things differently now? Are my dreams too small, or could I afford to dream bigger? These thoughts fill my mind until sleep takes me again.
Wednesday
I pick Quinn up from work and drive west, out of the city, to Quinn's parent's house in Bridgewater. I'm nervous about seeing them again, after what has happened between me and their daughter. I imagine how I would feel if someone had hurt mine, soon to be in the world. I imagine I would rise up and defend her like I would defend Quinn now. And even though her father spoke up for me I'm not stupid. He was defending marriage. He was expecting her to work things out with me and not trade me in for another. I can imagine that a good part of the problem he had was with her affair. He'd have been bitterly disappointed with her, and bitterness was a problem. I knew that better than anyone.
They live in a sprawling, two story house in the suburbs. Quinn's grandmother was wealthy and there was a significant windfall when she died, passing it down. We pull up out front in Quinn's Jeep and I turn off the engine, listen to it cool down. Kids are playing in the street, throwing a ball to and fro. I'll be playing with my own child in a few years, that will be me throwing the ball, catching it as it returns firstly falling way too short and then snapping into my hands with a sting and a yell of encouragement.
Quinn takes a deep breath. "So," she says, "we should go in then."
"I'm with you," I tell her, "all the way."
"I know," she says and climbs slowly from the car.
We make our way up the path. Her walk is changing ever so slowly along with the rest of her. I love even her walk. It's not as sexy anymor
e, but I'm captivated by it regardless.
The front door opens before we start on the stairs to the porch. Quinn's mother stands at the top as I help her daughter climb to her. She's smiling as we reach the top and she takes my wife in her arms.
"Mom," Quinn says and starts to cry.
"Look at you," Beverly, Quinn's mother, says, and she does, she looks her over head to toe. "You're looking so beautiful."
"I'm not. I'm getting huge."
"That's the way it's supposed to work, dear. Doesn't she look beautiful, Judd."
"She sure does."
"Come inside," Beverly says. She ushers us in. "I can't find your father, but he's not far."
He's probably in the shed out back, hiding, I think.
The house is how I remember it. There are pictures all over the walls of Quinn and her family, her brothers and his. I see that familiar wedding photo of ours and I feel the slightest of pangs - but nothing like before. Time is erasing that pain, but the picture will always be tainted in my mind.
Beverly collects bears. She's one of those people who are obsessed with one thing. Frank, Quinn's father, has managed to keep her collection to one room. I pass it, take a peek, and find it as I saw it last.
The hall takes us to the kitchen and the dining room. I can smell the roast and I'm instantly reminded that I haven't had lunch. Quinn eats frequently now or faints. I have to keep the snacks coming some days. But I can go hours without.
The huge, old clock that was Beverly's grandfather's tocks away in the corner, recording each second of existence in the way it has for over one hundred years. I wonder if I will be remembered long after I am gone and what I will be remembered for. Will it be that I was a total