succeeded in completing that list. If I was to add anything, and then cross it off straight away, it would be ‘Love Quinn’. Two words that have almost taken over my life.
And so Rex talks about how he’s going to lay out a foundation that we can use to plan our futures and make them happen. But this is no magic formula. This is hard work. This is honest. This is openness. And even though I think I’m become quite accomplished at that sort of thing, I’m feeling a little anxious. I guess it’s the old me trying to assert himself again.
The four of us sit in the back row, and we’re almost the last to leave. Mary comes from the front, bringing the speaker with her. Quinn hugs her warmly and I allow her to kiss me on the cheek.
“Judd, Quinn, I’d like you to meet Rex,” she says.
“Mary has told me a thing or two about you.”
I smile and take his hand. “I think I can guess what those two things were.”
He smiles back, looks at Mary. “I wonder if you can. Mary has indicated to me that you two need some further help. She’s suggested that we might make a good fit. My wife...” He looks around. “...I can’t see her at the moment, but she’s got some specialist training that might meet your needs. But we don’t need to decide anything tonight. I’d like to get together for coffee tomorrow with my wife, Mandy, if you’d like.”
Quinn smiles warmly. “We’d like.”
“Okay. So, after the morning session, we’ll meet in town.”
“Sounds great,” I say.
“And these two are...” he begins.
“This is Wade and his wife, Chloe.”
Rex shakes Wade’s hand, and then Chloe’s. There is silence. He narrows his eyes, looks back and forth between the two of them, not saying anything, not even looking at each other.
“I sense some tension between you both,” he says.
Quinn snorts. “Just a bit,” she says.
“They’re a work in progress,” I say.
“Aren’t we all,” Rex replies.
Later, in our room, I take Quinn’s dress off and do to her exactly what I wanted to do the last time we were at a seminar like this. Then we collapse on the bed and laugh at how things are different for us.
Different because we had never made love like that before, not even in the beginning. We didn’t know what love was then. We didn’t know that loving is the hardest thing that any two people can undertake. To love is to let go of yourself, surrender yourself to the other person so completely that there is almost nothing left of you. It is sacrifice, it is grace and it is blessed.
Different because we never made love like that where we were broken, when we were haemorrhaging. We had sex. But we didn’t surrender. We didn’t forgive. We didn’t treasure or cherish. And it’s incredibly sad, because our daughter was conceived in that time. She was brought into being by two people who had forgotten what that act of love was supposed to represent: connection. It should have been wonderful, magical, to conceive her in love, but sadly, she was not. It is one of my greatest regrets, and even though she has not said it, I believe that is true for Quinn and well.
Saturday
Quinn comes out of the bathroom with towel wrapped around her middle and around her head. She turns around and finds that I am starring at her from the bed. She puts her hands on her hips, tilts her head. She has a wry smile on her lips and her eyes are dancing in the lamp light.
“Are you having a good look there?” she asks me.
“Oh, yes,” I say.
She is beautiful. Her breasts are round and full. Her belly is large and full of new life. I sigh.
“What?” she says.
“I love your breasts,” I say.
“Well, you should enjoy them while you can because when Rachel comes they’ll be off limits.”
“I can’t help feeling a little sad about that. And by the time you’ll let me near them they won’t be any where near that big.”
“All the more reason not to waste any time.”
I stand up to do just that but she puts her hands out in front of her and pushes me back onto the bed.
“But not now,” she says. “Now we have to get dressed and head down to breakfast. We have thirty minutes, so get in that shower.”
Nothing of what Rex is saying is new to me. But I haven’t thought of putting all of the skills he’s brought to the table in one complete system. There is a certain beautiful simplicity to it that makes me wonder just what the hell I’d been doing for the last ten years. And I know the answer. Nothing. I’d just been letting the wind blow us in any direction it liked. I never considered that there was a possibility that I could steer us to where we want to go. And that was on me, because Quinn needed me to lead and I didn’t.
But now we know where we want to be. Grant and Mary made us dream for a big and wonderful future, but we haven’t got to working out how to get there. I guess this is the work that we must do, and I guess this is the way that we’ll do it.
Wade and Chloe are speaking now, a few more words today than yesterday. But the tension has not abated. At least it hasn’t worsened. That’s something.
Quinn and I head into town after the morning session and find the coffee shop that Rex has suggested. We sit and wait. We don’t order, not until the others arrive.
“What do you think?” she asks me.
“I can’t help feeling that if we’d done half of things that Rex is suggesting then we might not have got ourselves in such a god-awful mess.”
“Like what?”
“Like talking to each other for a start. Like telling each other what’s going on. Talking out our struggles and obstacles and working out how to help each other. I know I could have helped you if I’d have listened to you, and I would have if that’s what we did intentionally.”
“And I suppose I’d have told you because that’s what we do. I’d not have kept things hidden from you and not gone to Wade.”
“But it seems a little sterile, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think that’s the point,” she says. “I think that it’s a way that couples can make time to talk to each other, like intentionally having a date night. You know how good that was when we made it a thing we do.”
“Sure.”
“I love you, Judd. And that isn’t going to change whether we do things this way or not. I just think that the idea is to be smarter about our relationship and not just bang away at it with no plan.”
“You’re right.”
Rex appears, with a woman presumably his wife, Mandy. She’s about his age, slim, attractive, stylish. She reminds me immediately of Quinn, though she has short hair and she’s a redhead.
Rex introduces his wife to us and the both of them sit. I wave over the waitress and we order. The two of them hold hands when the waitress leaves. They share a smile and then turn to us.
“So,” Rex says, “this is just a social meeting. We’re not talking about your problems here. This is just a get to know you thing.”
“Sounds fine,” I say and Quinn nods.
“You’re how many weeks, Quinn,” Mandy asks. She has a soft mid-west accent and delivers it with a warm smile that would melt stone.
“Nearly eight months.”
“You look so excited.”
Quinn takes my hand and squeezes it.
“We both are,” I say.
“And you’re both well?”
Quinn nods. “My blood pressure is a little high, but we’re otherwise okay. I had to give up work a little early, but it’s worth it.”
“It sure is,” Mandy says. “And you’re ready for the birth?”
“As ready as anyone can be. I’m kind of scared though.”
“That’s perfectly natural.”
“I think you’ll both be great parents,” Rex says.
“Thanks,” I say. “It didn’t look good there for a while, but I think you’re right. We will be.”
Rex smiles and nods.
“How much did Mary tell you about us?”
Quinn asks.
“Very little,” Mandy replies.
“We don’t violate confidences,” Rex explains. “Mary just suggested that we meet with you because she felt we were a good fit. But she’s told us nothing of your struggles. If we all agree to start to meet together then you’ll be telling us about them.”
“We know that you trusted Grant and Mary,” Mandy adds, “and that takes a lot of time to build. That isn’t going to happen overnight between us. We’ll have to earn that trust from you. But we want to hear your stories. We want to be part of those stories, if you’ll let us. I know that it’s hard to keep telling them over and over again, but I also think that each time you tell them you get some new vision about yourselves that you didn’t see before.”
“But that’s enough talking about you,” Rex says with a wide grin. “Let’s talk about us.”
Rex started work ten years ago as a Pentecostal pastor in Florida. At some point he found himself helping married couples with their problems and discovered that he had a gifting in it. I’ve always been a bit weary of charismatic types with all their arm waving. Quinn never seemed to mind them.
Mandy is a phycologist. She specialises in abuse and addictions. She met Rex nine years ago and they’ve been married for six. They look like they’re still on their honeymoon, the way they hold hands, the way they look at each other. They don’t have children, though I think she’d like some one day. She looks at Quinn with a silent mix of wonder and longing.
I like them. They’re as real and honest as Grant and Mary, and they’re nearer to our ages and they’re both cool and I want to be like them, and I just don’t know why. They have something