simple but I doubt it’s going to be easy.
“And this is part of the bad patterns you’ve got yourself into, the one’s that you’ve identified. This is the thing you determined poisoned your marriage. And now that you’re going to rebuild your relationship, it’s never been more important. And what you’ll be doing is changing your behaviours. Instead of destructive words, you’ll replace them with words of life.”
We return to the house a little later with my catch. Quinn is proud of me right up until she smells the fish and proceeds to run to the bathroom. I remember now that fish is her weakness. I remember how she visited me back at home with news of our baby. I guess it was the way she told me in the end.
We stand then, on the gravel drive way, looking at each other, saying nothing. A decision has been made. A line has been drawn in the sand. We were saying what we wanted and these people were going to help us achieve it.
“So,” Grant says finally, “next week we’ll start together. Is that what you want?”
I nod. Quinn says yes. She’s been crying again, but less so than last week. She doesn’t look like she’s had her entire life turned upside down – which in reality it has. Both our lives were a shambles, but there was hope in sight to put everything back, at least to some order. Nothing would be in the same place again.
“Good. So, we have some homework to do during the week. You should be used to that by now.”
“On top of what you’ve already given us?” I ask. I can only assume Quinn has her own personal work to do like me.
“Yes. We give you two tasks. One that you work on as a couple and the other is individual. We’d like you to write down your story, like you’ve already told us. You haven’t told each other your stories and that’s what we’re going to do next week. Start at the very beginning, when you met, and write it up to where things started to go wrong, but no further. And we’d like you not to share your work until we meet again next week. Okay?”
We leave the fish for Grant and Mary to enjoy and start back home. We have to ride with the top up all the way so that she can make it without vomiting. She doesn’t speak as we drive, she stares out the window. I’m used to it. I don’t ask her how she is - instead I’m trying to communicate my concern with my eyes. I think she gets it.
We pull up next to her Jeep in the carpark under her building.
“Space?” I say what we’re both feeling.
“Please,” she says back and I nod.
She leans over and kisses me on the mouth, the only demonstrative indication that she loves me and we’re going to make a go of things.
“I’ll call you,” she says.
She goes to get out, but I take place a hand on her arm. “This is going to work,” I tell her.
“What?” she asks quietly.
“You and me - this is going to work.”
She smiles, and I know that smile well. She doesn’t believe me. She can’t see how we can after everything. But she wants to, and that’s a start. That’s something I can hold on to.
“Bye, Judd.” She gets out, goes to the lift. The doors close on her and she’s gone.
I take a deep breath and head back to my flat. I wonder if she’s going to be okay. I hope she’ll call me if she needs me. There are a lot of ifs in my life right now.
In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks…
Judd is disillusioned with his work… Quinn faces some truths about herself… Stories are told…
We get through the show and then the meeting afterwards. I’ve got some calls to make later and then I was going down to see my contact at a steak house chain that wants some air time. But Wade doesn’t run out. He stays in his chair. I know he wants something.
“How are you?” he asks me.
“Just swell, Wade.”
“I mean it,” he says.
I remember him asking me this question several times in the last year. It’s only occurred to me that he wasn’t asking because he cared, but because he was feeling guilty for what he was doing. I’m just guessing about that. I don’t think the emotion is in his repertoire. He asked me how I was even as he’s screwing my wife behind my back. I’m getting angry now.
“What do you want, Wade?” I ask him with a little bite.
“I just want to know how you and Quinn are going.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. You know I care about both of you.”
“I know you’d care to screw one of us at least.”
He shakes his head. “Back to that again.”
“Well it’s kind of why I’m in the middle of this mess that is my life.
---
“Listen,” he says. “She came to me. She could have gone to someone else, someone half decent, someone that might just stay with her through everything. And then it’d be over. So, if I’d rejected her, she might have found someone else, so I kept her busy and she stayed with you. I don’t know if that would have happened with anyone else.”
I’m raising my brows. “That’s some screwed-up twisted logic,” I say.
---
“Anyway,” she tells me, “I have some things to say.”
“I suspected as much.”
“You did?”
“I haven’t heard from you all week. I guessed you’ve been working through some heavy stuff.”
She looks down. “I have.”
“Well, you’d best get on with it then. The new ‘us’ shots straight, right?”
“Right.” She takes a deep breath. “I have some unresolved issues from the past.”
“I know what you mean.”
---
“I’ve got problems,” I say, and I feel Quinn touch my arm. I unravel my defences and she takes my hand in hers.
“Say it to her,” Grant tells me.
I turned to her. She nods encouragingly.
“I’ve got problems,” I say, “I know I do. And those problems, they pushed us apart. I don’t want to keep doing the same things over and over again. I want to be able to...” I hang my head and Quinn squeezes my hand. “I want to write another story, one where we love each other and the things we’ve done, that I’ve done, don’t matter. I want to be your friend too. I’ve said that and I mean it. And I want to be able to look at you without thinking about what’s come between us.”
---
We drive out to the sea and park, put the top up and the seats back and stare out at the ocean.
“We had a pretty good life,” I say, “didn’t we? I mean, we screwed it up totally, but it was pretty good for a while there.”
“We did.” She sighs. “But I think they believe that we’re not completely lost causes. That’s good to know.”
I nod my agreement. “I don’t want us breaking up to be the end of our story. I want this to be the start of something better. Bigger. Does that sound crazy? If it does then I’ll shut the hell up.”
---
I drop her off at the lift and she goes up to our apartment alone. I head back to the flat feeling emotionally drained and full of questions. I pull out the drawer next to my bed and find a small matchbox, something simple and common-place. I slide it open and tip my wedding ring into my other hand. I look at it there, shiny, untarnished. I turn it over in my hand. It’s a perfect circle, undented, not like my heart. I look at my left hand, to the finger where the ring used to sit. There is a slight pale indentation there. The ring had almost become a part of me, so much so that I had hardly realised it was there most of the time.
Download regularly the Episode Guide for updates on this series. Additionally there is an Adult version (contains adult themes, coarse language, sexual references, high-level sex scenes and some violence) and downloadable audio books of these episodes (adult version).
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