Twenty Four Weeks – Episode 6 – “Seventeen”
Written by J.D.Denisson.
A sequel to the movie “This is Where I Leave You”.
Characters and back story based on the novel “This is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper.
Copyright 2016 J.D.Denisson.
Previously…
“Judd…” Quinn begins sadly, shaking her head slowly. There is regret behind her eyes but I’m in no mood to delve into how she looks. She has just told me that I am going to be a father, and that the man that has taken her away from me is going to stand behind her, like he’s some loyal, honourable man. “We were never the same after we lost our baby.”
“Hang on,” I say back. We haven’t spoken in two months, not since her birthday, not since I discovered her ugly secret. I have been given no explanation for her betrayal, and when it comes this is what she offers. It cuts deeper than if she had become bored with me, or angry, or even if she had simply become indifferent. She placed the blame upon Thomas, and I could not stand for that. “You’re not going to use our miscarriage as an excuse for sleeping with my boss for a year, are you?”
“No,” she replies, sitting forward, her eyes firm on mine. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Because it sounds like that’s what you’re loading up.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying we were never the same after that… you just shut down, like always.”
And the truth of that is harder to hear than any of her other words. Even as I hear them, even as the implications start to become evident in my mind that same detachment washes over me. I have no words, no reply. I stare into space, looking away from her. I prove her point.
---
“Did you know?” I ask Jen through the telephone.
“Yes.”
“What about before? Did she tell you she was thinking of getting involved with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you try and talk her out of it? Did you tell her it was a bad idea?”
“Judd... She was unhappy, and that was from you. Wade made her happy. What do you want me to say?”
“I was sort of hoping that someone would have said a good word for me – someone would have suggested that she talk to me about it. That might have headed off all of this. I accept that things had gone cold between us, and I even accept that it was my doing. But it seems that there were a whole lot of people that knew what was going on and didn’t tell me.”
“If you didn’t see the signs then you were just plain stupid. And she did talk to you. You didn’t listen. You know how much that broke her heart?”
---
She sighs, puts down her chopsticks and sits back in her chair, looking down. “I suppose we had to come to this. It’s been so nice that I thought we might have more time before... before some things are said.” She takes a deep breath. “Tell me. I’m ready.”
I smile, hold out my right hand to her. She sees the movement out of the corner of her eye and looks up. She’s frowning. She sees the hand held out to her but doesn’t move. Then she slowly, timidly reaches out and takes mine with her left, the hand that once held her wedding ring.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“Where we are now,” I continue, “all of this... this is my fault. I messed up. I’m sorry.”
---
We talk for a long time about the lives we have lived together, about the times of great joy and the times of pain. We talk about our baby boy and what happened within her after, how the pain almost destroyed her and how she learnt to deal with it by simply living on. She talks about Wade but she doesn’t dwell on him because he’s broken her heart and she’s still hurting and through it all she’s realised she made the biggest mistake of her life and she doesn’t think she can undo it. She doesn’t tell me how things started with him or why. That would be for another time when both of us are stronger.
---
I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to take away her pain. I didn’t know how. So I pushed her to have another. Quinn has the kind of uterus that makes the journey of sperm a difficult undertaking. Our first pregnancy had been something like a miracle, and a second was unlikely. So unlikely that it never happened.
And so we gave up on our dream of a baby. Quinn moved on, or so it seemed, and we tried as best we could to make another life for ourselves. But below the surface there were cracks, ever widening cracks. We were falling apart and there was nothing we could do. We fought, we cried, we promised and we failed.
---
“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. You’re part of the cause of that, and it’s damn difficult to just watch you get on with your wonderful life while mine is complete crap.”
“I get that. I did that to you. I know you don’t believe me, but I am actually sorry for everything. But you have to know, I didn’t go after her. I didn’t seduce her. She came to me. You were hurting her. She was lonely and in pain and that was your fault.”
---
“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?”
---
I look out at the ocean, its waves relentlessly crashing upon the shore. “I don’t want us breaking up to be the end of our story,” I tell her. “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. The three of us.”
Monday
I went back to our apartment while she was still at work and left my story on the kitchen bench with a small note to allay her fears that I might have been snooping around. She’d made it clear that I was welcome home, but I still did not want her to feel invaded.
She calls me later that night.
“I got your letter,” she says. “It was quite a surprise.”
“Good. What did you think?”
“It’s better. I’m glad you changed it. So, when do you want to talk about these stories?”
“So you’re up for this then? You want to go back?”
“Sure,” she said. “This is going to help, I know it. But we’ve got to put the work in, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“And I see you’re committed, which actually makes me very happy.”
“Good,” I say. I’m smiling. “I want you to be happy, I do. You deserve it. And if I can give it to you, then I’m happy too.”
“I don’t know where this is going to lead us, but you know, I do love you, Judd.”
“I know. I love you too. Friday, after work?”
Wednesday
I sit on the bed in my flat in the evening and turn my wedding ring over on my finger. Write the story I want, I think. I have big dreams, big hopes, but I want to know what’s r
ealistic, and I want to know what hers are and I know I can’t ask her. Would I just write some small life down or could I hope for bigger?
Friday
We meet at the new place, a block from the station, as we arranged. No one knows us here. No one cares. There is no history, only that which we forge ourselves. I like the idea of that - that our future is entirely in our hands and not moulded by our past, our mistakes, what people thought about us.
I’ve already ordered.
“You okay,” I ask her. She looks well. She looks wonderful. Gone is the faint look of self-loathing that I wanted to see when we were separated but I can’t stand to see now. I suppose we still are separated, but things are different now.
She nods, puts her left hand up against her chin with her elbow on the table. She smiles at me. I see a flash of light on her left hand.
“How does it feel,” I ask her. “The ring,” I clarify when she frowns.
“Oh.” She pulls her hand away and looks at the band I gave her nine years ago, studies it.
“Strange,” she says, “and familiar.”
“Yeah,” I say. I understand. “You’re only wearing your wedding ring,” I point out. She has two others: the engagement ring and the eternity ring that I bought her five years ago. It is now a little amusing to me that an eternity turned out to be only four years, but only a little.
“One ring at a time,” she says quietly, and then adds: “I loved your story.”
“You did?”
“The second one. Yeah. I’m glad you rewrote it.”
“Well, I’ve been told I’m a little closed off.”
She gives off a little hum like she’s agreeing, because she is. She’s accused me of that before.
I keep going: “So I’m