dodged anything remotely resembling this sort of thing in the past, but I think I need to just face all of this, all of my mistakes and stop making excuses. So,” he says, nodding sadly, “you’d better tell me why.”
“Are you sure you really want to know?” I ask him and he nods again, and so I tell him: “At last year’s party she told you she loved you.”
He frowns. “That wasn’t the first time she said that.”
I shake my head. “That was the first time that she meant it.”
“What? I didn’t know that. At the party? New Year’s? Why then?”
“She’s sentimental that way. I guess she’d felt it for a little while – at least she was around Christmas, I know that – but she wanted it to be on a special occasion. New Year’s was perfect.”
“I didn’t know she was like that,” he confesses.
I shrug. “There’s a lot you don’t know about her.”
He sighs. “True. I guess, at the time, I didn’t realise it. I mean, a lot of women tell me that they love me. That’s usually my cue to get out of there. But Quinn was different, you know? I did love her in my way. Damn,” he says, his eyes wide. “This can’t be easy to hear.”
I smile. “Empathy, Wade?” I say, with just a little hint of sarcasm. Old habits die hard. “But I’m okay with this. Two months ago maybe I’d have punched you in the face, but not now, not since we spoke our vows.”
“Well, I guess I can understand your reasons for not coming. I’d probably do the same thing. Though I’m not sure I’d have been so forgiving in your place.”
“You should give yourself a little more credit. You’ve got yourself one of those relationship things, remember?”
“Take a look around. Where are we right now?”
“I see your point.”
Thursday
The day starts like all the Christmas days before it for the last ten years. We would climb from our bed with a reluctant haste, exchange small gifts, shower, dress and leave for Elmsbrook – heading over to Quinn’s parent’s house after lunch. There was a hidden agenda to that scheme, largely to do with avoiding an explanation why we couldn’t go to church with them. The Christmas service was well and truly over by the time we had pulled ourselves away from my family. This also served us the added bonus of avoiding my father’s deteriorating behaviour as he became progressively drunker as the day proceeded.
But this Christmas would be different.
Quinn is in her pyjamas and gown when I exit the shower and dress, sitting on the sofa, lazily grazing on toast.
“I know we didn’t really talk about gifts this year,” I say, “but I had to get you something.”
“I’m surprised you had the time with everything going on.”
Quinn and I have a little tradition. We generally keep our presents small in favour of saving for one good holiday every year. She surprised me last Christmas, and at the time I didn’t understand what it meant, and it’s only just dawning on me now. When I opened the box she handed to me, I found an expensive watch, a Rolex. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it myself, and I wondered how she came up with the money. I didn’t ask, though I might have on any other day. But the truth was, she was feeling guilty for being with Wade, for how she felt about him. She was now in love with him and I was getting a consolation prize. And even now, as this thought passes through my mind, I know how she came up with the money – or rather I know who bought it. It was, in essence, a gift from both of them. And, I suspect, very soon, when she had finally decided to leave me, it would be their parting gift.
All of this comes and goes without comment, and without even the slightest hint upon my face. I nod, smiling, hand her over the small box, forgive her, as the thought dissipates.
She makes a little sound of delight and opens it, pulls out a golden heart suspended upon a thin chain.
“Wow,” she says.
“It’s to remember the first time we heard Rachel’s heart-beat – at the hospital – when we were in such a dark place. But that little heart changed everything. I saw the sun come out for the first time in months. I knew that everything was going to work out. I accepted the reality of things, but I knew that I was going to be alright. And then things turned out so much better than I could have hoped for. I wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t heard that little heart.”
She slips it around her neck and regards it in her hand with a soft smile. Then she looks up at me suddenly. “Wait here,” she orders. So I do. I sit on the end of the sofa and wait for her.
She returns with a small box of her own, long and thin. She hands it to me and I open it. Her pregnancy strip. Two lines, clearly seen. Evidence of Rachel, her start. Simple. More than inexpensive – free. But also more precious than I could even imagine.
“Every time I see it I think to show it to you,” she tells me, “but you’re not around, so… anyway… I thought this would be the perfect time to show you.”
“Wow,” I say to her, like she did to me. She always knows the best things to say.
“I’m sorry you didn’t see it first, before Wade,” she confesses a little later. She’s dressed now, beautiful as always, almost ready to leave.
“Don’t be,” I say gently. “That’s just the way things were. He was there and I wasn’t. I was running away, like I do. I should have stayed and fought for you, but I ran. So, Wade seeing that strip first, that’s as much my fault as yours, and I don’t blame you anymore.”
She shakes her head. “I just can’t believe how good you are about everything that’s happened. I think, if it had been you having the affair, that I wouldn’t be so forgiving. I think I’d still he yelling at you.”
“And I’d deserve it too. But… what happened… it still hurts to think about it, but that hurt is a little less every day. It’s kind of hazy… blurry… indistinct. And that’s what I wanted when I came back on that first afternoon and found you alone and falling apart. I wanted it to be a fading memory.” I smile warmly, take her hand. “And you’re making that happen. The woman that you are now is replacing the woman that hurt me, and you’re so much better than any version of you that I could imagine.”
She laughs. “You should have seen his face when he saw it. He was terrified.”
“He knew that he was sterile then, though, right?”
She nods. “We hadn’t talked about kids. I guess I thought that I wasn’t ever going to be a mother, so whether he could have children never came up. But I think there was another thought going through his mind then – that he was going to have to help bring up your child and that I was always going to be connected to you because of that. Or, most likely, he never wanted kids. He probably saw the excitement of our relationship drain away right there and then. I mean, virtually the next thing he asked me was whether I wanted to keep her.”
“And how did I look when you told me?”
She sighs. “Angry. But that was directed at me, I know that. You were probably wondering if there was anything else I could do to ruin your life. And you were numb too, blank. I know that was shock. I mean, I understand that. I sat and starred at that strip for two solid hours before I told Wade. I was excited, but I didn’t know how he’d react, and I didn’t know how to tell you either – not that I could anyway, because you’d disappeared.”
“I’m sorry I did that.”
She shrugs. “That’s my fault too. If I hadn’t been lying to you, then you wouldn’t have walked in on us and we wouldn’t have been in that position. I’m just sad that her start was like that. We should have shared that together – but instead I shared that with Wade, and it went downhill from there.”
I smile, squeeze her hand. “It’s not the beginning that matters – it’s the end, and she’ll be here with her mom and dad. And she’ll be loved, the same love that we have for each other. That’s what matters.”
I stop the car right outside Quinn’s parent’s church. It’s a little Baptist Church in the suburb over from where she grew up. There are people
arriving, all dressed up in conservative clothes underneath thick winter coats.
I imagine the women are in dresses down to their ankles, hiding every inch of their legs. The men are in suits. Not business suits. Not stylish suits you see in nightclubs. Boring suits. Drab colours. Stale.
Young people are moving here and there. They’re trying hard to be individual, push the boundaries, against their parents eighties dress sense. Every once a while one or two appear that have broken free. They’re trying to be cool, but they’re not really. This is not a cool place to be. There’s no modern music. There’s no drinking. There’s no sex. There’s no drugs.
All of this is in contrast to the building. It’s advertising Christmas in a gaudy display of lights and tinsel and baubles. Perhaps all of that will be pulled down tomorrow, but for today the church looks like a huge Christmas tree.
My wife blends in here. It’s the perfect place for a pregnant woman to hide. Most dresses for the expecting woman are conservative. Quinn pulls off a different vibe, but it’s hard to escape.
She leans over and kisses me lightly on the lips.
“Have fun,” I say.
“You could come in,” she suggests. I look down. I’m not in the uniform.
“Some other time maybe,” I say, meaning never. Not on your life.
She smiles. She knows what I’m thinking. I watch her walk over to the steps. Her family greet her, wave to me. I watch them go in,