that you have,” Mary says. “We’ve put you on the spot, I know. Why don’t you look at Judd and tell him what you want from this.”
She turns to me and I shrug. This is uncharted territory for both of us. She’s looking at me, looking like she’s caught in headlights.
“Judd... I guess I do know what I want,” she starts haltingly. “I know you’ve forgiven me, but I’m not sure that I can forgive myself. Until I do that, I don’t know about us. I don’t know if we have a future together, but I just want to get to know you again. I just want to learn to be your friend again. And I want there to be an ‘us’. I want to know how that can happen. I want to believe that it can. Then maybe we can be better parents to our baby.”
“Judd,” Grant says when Quinn was finished. “Your turn.”
I sigh and shift uncomfortably in my chair, bringing my thoughts to bear. I need to be honest, anything less would not work. My previous methods to fix things were no longer effective – our predicament proved that.
“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.”
“I’m sorry that we have put you on the spot,” Mary says. “Couples often say what they think their partner wants to hear if they’ve got a chance to think about it beforehand. We want honest, unscripted answers, like yours. You both did very well.
“And I see something else too: the way that she took your hand. That was love in action, and it was beautiful.”
Grant nods and then sits back. “So we gave you both an assignment to do before you came. How did you do with that?”
“Okay,” I say. Quinn nods.
“Good. First, we need some rules. No interjecting or correcting. Listening is the exercise here. Each of you will listen to the others story. We want you to think about it during the week and get together before we meet again and talk. If you have questions, ask them then. Okay?”
We nod. He smiles.
“So, let’s hear Judd’s story first.”
“Haven’t we already told you all of this?” I ask them.
“But not to each other,” Mary says gently. “It’s okay, Judd. Be brave.”
I sigh. I let go of Quinn’s hand so I can take out my story from my pocket. I unfold the paper and spread it out. I clear my throat. I start, read it all, every word, every line. I’m aware Quinn is watching me intently. I can’t see her face, I can’t read what she’s thinking. My voice wavers a little in places, especially when I talk of our first time. I’m missing her in my bed but I’m still seeing Wade where he never belonged.
I’m done. I fold the paper back into a small, neat square and slide it into my top pocket. I don’t look at her. I don’t dare. The room is quiet and I can feel the tension.
“Quinn, honey,” Mary says then. “Your turn.”
She starts to talk. She talks of the moment she met me, how she wasn’t sure of me at first. She talks of our friendship and how we found ourselves longing for each other. She talks of the joy in her heart that she found someone so sweet and loving, so giving. She cries when she talks of our wedding, how her heart fluttered when she saw me standing at the end of the isle. Then she talks of our pregnancy, of how were closer than we had ever been. She speaks of losing him, and how she was broken hearted.
Tears were running down my cheeks. I wiped them away with my hand, but I still can’t look at her. We had something beautiful then, something so pure, so passionate.
Grant and Mary ask us questions then of those days, things that we had left out. They were very perceptive, I thought, but then they had probably heard every story imaginable. Human beings are, if nothing else, predictable.
“So, same time next week,” Grant says. “Now we have a little homework for you both. I’d like you to go home, find your wedding rings and put them back on.”
“We’re separated,” Quinn points out. “Isn’t that a little... premature?”
“But you’re still married,” Mary reminds us. “We want you to remember how it feels to be bonded to someone, emotionally and physically. Whenever you look at your hands, I want you to look at your rings. Really look. Those rings are a reminder to you that you’re connected. And when you do, we want you to remember those stories you told. What it was like before things went off the rails. If you find that you’re moving forward in your stories past what you’ve written, pull yourself back to a favourite part.”
“And then we’d like you to write another story,” Grant says. This one will be for your future, the one that you want. Don’t be afraid to dream big.”
“Don’t share it with each other,” Mary adds. “We’ll look at it in a few weeks. We’ll see if it’s changed in any way.”
Our time was done. We stand and they usher us out to the door. Mary and Quinn are ahead.
“Judd, one more thing.”
I stop. Grant puts an arm on my shoulder.
“I want you to do something extra. Not for me. Not for Quinn. For you.”
“What?”
“I want you to go back to your story. You told me facts like it was a documentary. I want you to rewrite it, only I want you to add how you felt about those events that shaped you. I want you to understand how those feelings impacted you then and how they affect you today. I don’t want to see it. You don’t have to show it to Quinn if you don’t want to. This is for you.”
I nod and Grant pats me warmly on the back.
“Next week then.”
We drive for about half an hour in silence while we chew on the stories of each other. I’m feeling a little like a failure with mine.
“What do you think?” she asks me.
I stumble for words. “It wasn’t quite what I expected,” I say. “I mean, I know Grant and all, and I kind of trust him, but today was a lot more personal because it was about us.”
“I feel the same way.”
We keep driving for five minutes in silence.
“I liked your story,” she says.
“Grant didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“He thought it had too many facts.”
“That’s how you think,” she points out. “No, you had things in there that I had forgotten about.” She laughs. “I forgot how you tried to impress me with those jokes. They were bad.”
I laugh too. “They were. But we’re not supposed to talk about this now.”
“I know,” she says, with a wicked grin. “But I don’t feel like following the rules. Here were are in a stolen Porsche and we’ve got the whole Saturday afternoon to kill. Let’s use our imagination.”
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.”
“No. It’s not crazy. But everything is just so hard. I just don’t know if I’ve got any fight left in me, Judd. I fought you for so long and now I’m just tired.”
“I know. But maybe I’ve got enough fight in me for the three of us.”
“Hmmm. I like that. Th
e three of us.”
“It’s always going to be the three of us, whether we make it or not.”
She takes my hand. “I know,” she says.” She sighs. She sounds tired. “I think you should take me home.”
And I do.
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. I slip it on - examine how it fits back into its place automatically, like it was always there. I think of her, putting that ring on there for the first time, how it refused to go on, and how we laughed at its reluctance. She had become part of me even more than the ring. She had indented my soul, and when she came back, she slipped right back in there like she had left. I sighed. It was so easy in some respects to go back the way we were, but those ways were flawed. Those ways took us to the edge of destruction. We had to find new ways to be, to communicate, to love. I hoped that we would find them in time.
I did what Grant asked me to do that night. The thought of what I had missed in that first assignment irritated me. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, until I finally gave up and rewrote the