“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not.”
“Listen to her, Judd,” Mary says. “She’s telling you how she felt. That’s important.”
“I know,” I say, and I do.
“Let’s stop for a moment,” Grant says. “I want you both to take a look at your body language right now, at your posture.” We do. We know what he’s about to say - and he does: “You’re looking away from each other. There’s no eye contact. Both of your postures are hostile and disconnected.”
“I want you both to uncross your arms,” Mary tells us, “turn your bodies towards each other, and look into each other’s eyes. I want you to do that for a minute.”
We both sigh in cue, turn and face each other. Quinn’s looking hurt and angry that I’m not hearing her, and I’m feeling set upon. I look into her eyes and they start to soften. It was magic. I feel my face relax by the second.
“A good part of our message is our body language,” Mary continues, and we still looking into each other’s eyes. “That’s how you look when you do it. Are you closed off, are you hostile? Are you open and present? I even go so far to say that the tone of your voice and even the words you choose – be they loaded with extra meaning or not – can also be non-verbal. The rest is the message itself. If you fail to deliver the first part, then the second will be lost as well.”
“And the receiver plays a part in the message as well,” Grant adds. “How the person hearing the message handles their non-verbal side can affect the delivery. Can you hear what your partner is saying, really saying, when you’re closed off, not looking at them, turning yourself away?”
“And you’re both not alone,” Mary tells us. “We all communicate badly. All of this is learned behaviour, like we talked about before. Unfortunately we don’t learn the best way to communicate as we’re growing up. We learn the worst way to talk to each other from our parents, from society, from the media, so it’s not surprising so many people can’t talk to each other when they really need to.”
I nod slowly, slightly smile. Quinn smiles back.
Grant leans forward, his hands together almost in prayer. “We do this as an exercise to show couples how they dealt with the very first issue and why it was never settled.”
“Quinn,” Mary says and she turns to her. “Do you want to talk about your baby?”
And she does. She starts to talk about her pregnancy, how she felt to have him grow inside her. She talked of the dreams she had for him, and as she did the tears started to fall.
“Tell Judd,” Mary says, motioning to me. “He needs to hear this.”
She imagined a life with him. He’s a baby and she plays with him. He looks up at her with eyes just for her. He smiles for the first time and her heart soars. She takes him from the bath and holds him in his towel. She takes in the wonderful smell of him. He’s walking, one step, two, and then he’s running everywhere. He plays at her feet, he runs to her and grabs her legs and holds them tight. He’s fallen over, and skins his knee and cries and she kisses it and the tears are gone. He’s starting school and she cries as he goes, but he runs toward it fearlessly like he will for everything ahead of him. He’s a young man and he’s graduating. He smart and strong, and he’s gentle and kind. He goes to college and meets a girl and he loves her deeply and completely and can’t wait for her to marry him. She cries as he makes the girl his wife and even more when they have their first child. She holds her grandchild in her arms and the cycle continues - one after another.
All the while I wonder where I was. Was I sleeping? Did I miss all those wonderful things? What dreams did I have for my son the little boy, my son the man, the husband, the father?
I’m looking into her crying eyes and I’m crying too. Suddenly I’m full of love and joy for the son I never got to meet, to mould and teach and hold. Suddenly I am ashamed of holding Quinn back from telling me of her dreams that fate has cruelly dashed. I’m angry at myself for trying to get her move on quickly, like he didn’t matter, like those dreams didn’t matter.
Already she’s having dreams for our little girl and I cry because I wasn’t going to see those dreams that Quinn had for her, not close up. I was going to be a part-time father, present only when it was convenient. I cry because I came so close to losing her too.
But most of all I’m crying because I miss him. I’m crying finally because I’m grieving him like I should have years ago, like I should have done with my beautiful and damaged wife.
“Judd?” she says, coming to me.
“Our boy,” I say between uncontrollable sobs. “We lost our boy.”
And now she holds me and we grieve like we were always meant to, and our healing, barely visible in this sea of pain, rises in us, overwhelms us. It takes us in its arms and rocks us like a mother.
“I see great hope in you,” Grant says. “You’re both opening up wonderfully. Well done. Now, we have an assignment for you both: we want you to practice this new kind of communication. We want you to look at each other like we’ve shown you as you talk. When you meet together I want you to look at each other, really listen to what you’re saying to each other.”
The women are at the front door like they were last week. I wait on the lounge with Grant, like I’m supposed to. I’m waiting for my instructions.
I know what they’re doing. Together we work on the deep issues, the things that need their guidance. Our homework together is supposed to make us think about our relationship. Then they give us something personal to work on, something for ourselves. That’s what I’m waiting for.
“I want you to start thinking of moving back under the same roof,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be full time. Try a night a week, two if you can. I want you to get used to being together in the day to day stuff.”
“Okay,” I say, and I imagine it and my heart quickens. I haven’t slept in that house in so long. The last time was the night before her birthday and everything seemed to be alright but it definitely wasn’t.
“Quinn?” I say to her.
“Hmmm,” she murmurs back. She’s looking out the window and there’s a slight smile on her lips and I love her when she’s staring into space and I want to know what she’s thinking.
“I know I’ve said I’m sorry, but I think I need to keep saying it,” I tell her.
She looks at me. Her expression has not changed.
“You don’t,” she tells me.
“I know, but I want to. I have to say this.” I glance at her as much as I can to keep her eyes on mine. It’s hard as we’re heading south along the interstate at sixty. “I’m sorry for not letting you grieve our little boy. It was wrong and cruel of me, and I’m so very sorry. I’m sorry that I tried to push you into a child that you weren’t ready to have.”
“Thank you, Judd. That means a lot.” She places a hand on my shoulder. “I forgive you.” Then she laughs. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to cry with me?”
“A long time,” I say sadly. “And I’m sorry about that too.”
As we drive back into the city we say very little. We chew over the words that have been said in their naked honesty in our heads. I drop her off in the carpark and ask her if she wants me to come up with her but she doesn’t and I let her go. I think about the apartment that we have shared for so many years. I’ve stopped thinking of it as my home now. I ran from there when I learnt that ugly truth of my marriage and left it for her. I guess once the divorce had been finalised it would have been sold and the proceeds divided up in some inequitable way. And that would be that. All those memories that we shared in that space would be gone, relegated to some vague recollection of a time when things were good. But those memories were forever tainted for me. All I see now is how she betrayed me in the worst possible way by letting him in there and replacing me. I know, to some degree, why she did it, but I still can’t fathom how she could. We were friends, we were lovers, we had history, but that meant nothing to her.
And I’m
getting angry again. I’m getting bitter. I have forgiven her - she has said she was sorry more times that I could count. I have to hold onto the good things I have – her smile, her touch, her kiss, her laugh. She tells me that she still loves me, and I believe her, because it would be easier to give up on us, on everything, and just divorce me and move on. Our baby would be born and I would see her on weekends and holidays and times approved by Quinn and the courts. We would live our lives separately, be cordial when needed, raise a child, write our own stories. But she doesn’t want that. She sees something between us, something worth keeping, worth fighting for, and that makes her love real. That makes her love honest and pure and full of hope.
And that’s what I’m holding onto. That’s what I’m using to defuse my anger. That’s what I’m using to navigate this endless minefield of pain and regret. A love that holds on, that fights for the goodness in us, that can handle the truth at its best and at its worst, that looks past the faults and sees only the strengths, that is strong enough for the three of us.
In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks…
Judd stays the night… Judd’s upbringing is examined… Judd tells his family…
What you asked me, about staying over...”
“Yeah.”
“You could tonight if you’d like. I’m feeling okay today and I’d like the company. We could order