point I’m going to have to be.
The contracts haven’t arrived for Wade to go over, so we’re doing what we always do. We do our show and all the background work afterwards. Then we leave in the afternoon, Wade back to Chloe and me to Quinn.
I’m aware that in my current state I haven’t been paying the right amount of attention to my pregnant wife. I know I’ve fallen back some distance and I hate it. I hate that when something difficult comes along, I’m tipped over, staggering again, trying to find my feet.
And it’s not only Grant’s passing that has me reeling. Wendy’s situation has me confused as well. I’m thinking about true love and settling, about choices and sacrifices. I don’t know how all of that sits with me anymore.
I take Quinn out tonight, to her favourite Thai place. It’s not our date night, but I don’t want get locked into a routine. I want to be spontaneous. But I haven’t been anything of late.
She knows something’s wrong when we sit there for ten minutes not saying anything. I’m not looking at her. I’m looking everywhere else.
“Judd... I’m worried about you.”
“I know. I’m worried about me too.”
“I don’t know how to help you.”
“I don’t know that you can.”
“But you won’t even let me love you. You’re closing yourself off from me again, and it’s breaking my heart.”
“I’m sorry. I am. I know I’m doing it, I just can’t help it.”
“Just let me in a little. I can help.”
I nod sadly. “Grant dying has really got me spooked. And then Wendy...”
“You got quieter after you talked to her.”
“Yes.”
“What’s bothered you about Wendy?”
I take a deep breath. “She might well leave Barry for Horey. She has a choice to make.”
“Just like you and me.”
“But this is different. She loves Horey, more than anything, but she stayed with Barry because he’s the father of her children. You see?”
“You think that this has something to do with us?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want you to realise that I’m not the love of your life years from now and go to the man who is.”
“You’ll think I’ll go back to Wade?”
I’m shaking my head furiously. I don’t think she will, but I’m weak and afraid. “No. I know you won’t.” I’m saying this more for my benefit than hers. “It’s just that I want to be that man, not the one who you leave.”
“You are that man, not Wade. I fell in love with you, Judd. And I’ve stayed in love with all these years, even when I was with him, and you have to know how hard that was for me: loving you and being with him like that. But in the end I came back to you.”
“Because he rejected you.”
She shakes her head sadly. “When I saw you again my heart broke. I saw the pain in you and I felt it too. Judd, you’re the man I was always going to return to, and Wade knew it too. He knew I was going to leave him.”
“But you didn’t know that I was going to take you back.”
“No. But that didn’t matter. I hoped for it, prayed for it, but if you didn’t then I was just going to have to live with what I’d done. But I know you, Judd. I knew that you weren’t going to leave me and Rachel. I knew that you’d come back to me eventually and that you’d forgive me.”
“You knew right from the start?”
“I knew that you wouldn’t abandon me as soon as you knew I was carrying your child. That’s who you are. But it took you a little bit of time to realise it, but you didn’t let me down. And then, after Wade left me and I was back at home, I knew you’d come back to me. I just couldn’t let myself hope for what you’ve given me. It was more than I could ever have expected and certainly more than I deserved.”
“You didn’t get my forgiveness because you deserved it. I gave it because you needed it.”
“I did. But now I just need you to believe in me, that I won’t leave you or betray you again. And Grant’s death... do you feel that he’s someone else who’s left you, like I did, like your father?”
My wife has always been remarkably perceptive. I guess that’s one of the things I love about her. And in that moment I realise just how much of an ass I’ve been. I realise the extent that I’ve been neglecting her again and there was no excuse for it. I’ve been putting my issues onto her again and there was no fairness in it.
I look down, nod my head, and she takes my hand and I look up. “I do believe in you, Quinn. I don’t think that you’re going to leave me. And I’m sorry that I’ve pulled away from you.”
She leans over and kisses me. And then she smiles and sits back in her chair but still holds my hand. “Don’t stop letting me in.”
“I won’t,” I tell her. I’m not sure if I can fully defeat my fundamental nature or my flawed upbringing, but I can do the very best I can to get around them with the tools that Grant has given me. It was his legacy to me, and I’m holding onto that. “There’s something else.”
“What?” she asks me quietly.
“I haven’t been the best company the last few days, but that’s not the worst of it. I haven’t been the husband that I promised you I would be.”
“It’s fine.”
“But it isn’t. Like how I should have said that you look so beautiful tonight, which you do by the way. You’re stunning. And I shouldn’t have to say it after what we’ve been talking about. I should have said it when I first saw you like I did when we first decided to start again. And it’s not that I’ve got lazy, it’s just that I’m distracted, but that’s not a good enough excuse.”
“That’s just life, Judd. Some days we’re attentive, some days we’re distracted. I don’t blame you for that, and I’m prepared to cut you some slack because we’ve lost Grant, and with what’s going on with Wendy. And I know you’d do the same for me. I know you love me. You’ve shown it in so many ways, every day.”
And she’s right of course. That’s how life works. I guess that we have to allow the people we love to be themselves in any circumstance, not what we expect them to, or what we want them to. And giving them that gives them the freedom they need to be themselves. And that is love: letting them go so that they can return to us in their time, when they are ready. And in a way that’s what I did for Quinn: I let her go – though I had little choice in the matter – and she returned to me, broken and ready to be built up again.
The phone rings a short time after we get home. It’s not late. Quinn gets tired into the early evening and late nights are starting to become few and far between.
“It’s Elise Rogan,” says a woman on the other end.
“Sorry?” I say. “Who are you?”
“Mary Upton’s sister, Elise.”
“Ah. Sorry. Elise. Of course.”
“I won’t hold you up. Mary wanted you to know about Grant’s funeral.”
Friday. New Haven.
Thursday
Quinn’s forehead is beaded in sweat. Her face is red, swollen, congested with pain and fear. I am behind her, she is leaning against me. My arms reach around her, hold her hands. Our fingers are locked together, mine are white. I’m trying to ignore the pain in them because she has pain all through her body.
“You’re doing so well,” the midwife tells her, but I don’t think she is. Quinn is distressed, but she has no time to cry. Another contraction takes her away from me.
She screams, swears, grunts. She pushes, pants, groans. She delivers.
I think she is about to die, but she doesn’t. She lives. She cries when he comes out of her. They are not tears of joy. They are tears of overwhelming sadness. Nothing could have prepared her, prepared us, for this tragedy.
Thomas Ezekiel Altman. Born, died, same day. Not even that. Died before birth. Early. Before his time.
She holds him. He has been cleaned and dressed. He is small, like a doll. His eyes are closed, never to open, never to see her. His hands a
re small but they will never grasp my thumb, never hold my hand as I take him to the park to play. They will never hold the hand of the woman that he loves.
She cries. She cries for months, and I do too a little. Then I stop and think of another child to distract her from the pain. But she keeps crying, and crying. I can’t help her. The grief never ends.
Quinn asks Jen to come with us to classes. We take turns practicing supporting my wife through an imaginary labour. I’m starting feel some fear over what is ahead of us. I’ve been there before and it did not end well. It’s not the same set of circumstances, I know, but I can’t help feeling that way. I haven’t really talked to Quinn about this, we’ve skirted around the issue once or twice, but we are going to have to talk about this properly more sooner than later.
Somewhere within me is some joy too, and that’s what I’m holding on to. That’s what I’m trying to focus on. That and Quinn herself. I know that I’ve been distant and I’m trying to reverse that trend, I’m trying to find my way back to her again.
They have her doing breathing exercises, panting in order to not push if her body isn’t ready. I’m panting too, coaching her. I’m thinking of the words I spoke to her before. They sounded hollow at the time, and I hope this time I can make them sound like I mean them. All the while I’m hoping that history won’t repeat itself and we won’t be delivering another dead baby. I don’t think that we could survive that. I don’t think I could.
Friday
Wade gives me the day off. Quinn calls in sick. We drive up to New Haven. I’m in my father’s suit