baby girl plays at our feet, happy too. But what did I want exactly.
Wade did his thing. I did mine. Our meeting went quickly. Things were streamlined to a fine degree over the last few weeks, so much so that we were often out early. Wade was seeing Chloe quite regularly. I’d learnt that she was a sports woman - a gymnast I’d heard. He wasn’t sleeping around at the moment and I suspected that he was serious about being serious. He’d slept around on Quinn, I knew that for a fact, but he hasn’t for this girl. I was starting to feel something akin to pride, but these were early days.
The blank paper sat on the desk of the meeting room while we talked. I glanced to it often and I stared back at me accusingly. It was saying to me that I had no dreams, or if I did, they were small and insignificant, unimportant.
But my dreams weren’t small. They were significant. I started to dream big, and I put those dreams to paper.
She was there before me. She’s already ordered and our coffees are on the table. I’m surprised but I hide it with an easy smile. She’s smiling back as I sit. We ask each other how we are and how our week has been, usual, commonplace things. But these are things that married people should not be asking. They should know. Sadly, for the last two years we didn’t know, and we are still there.
“How is your homework going?” she asks.
“Done,” I say a little proudly. “You?”
She nods, takes a sip of her coffee. I haven’t started on mine yet. I’m studying her, trying to read her. I used to be good at it, but I guess I’ve got rusty.
I sit back in my chair. “Do you think we’re heading towards or away from your story?”
She gives me a funny look, one that I know. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
I drink my coffee quietly, looking about at the happy people, hoping that we were happy too. Hoping that they saw the same in us.
“I’m a little worried about tomorrow,” she confesses and I turn my eyes back to her. She’s frowning a little and I see it. “I mean, last week was hard, but this week they’re going to go deeper.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And I want to be honest, Judd, really honest, but I don’t want to hurt you again by what I say.”
I smile slightly. “Me too.”
“Mary gave me something extra this week.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. She said that if you were to come home, that I was to make the night as normal as possible. I wasn’t to pressure you.”
“You did that.”
“Thanks. I was worried.”
“About what?”
“We haven’t made love in a while, Judd. It’s hard to feel close to you if we don’t. And I need it too. You know how I got when I was pregnant last time. This is worse. I can see you, I can want you, but I can’t have you. And I can’t see why you won’t. Do I disgust you so much?”
She’s tearing up, and I place a hand on her arm.
“You don’t disgust me, not at all. You’re lovely and beautiful and I want you so much. But I can’t. I keep seeing you and Wade in my bed and it’s like a knife in my guts.”
I make it worse, which was never my intention.
“I miss us,” she says, just holding on.
“There still is an ‘us’,” I say, squeezing her arm. “Not like we had before. But we’re here and were talking. I think we’re worth fighting for.”
She wipes her eyes, nods slowly. “You still think that?” she asks. Her eyes plead me.
“Yes. I do.”
Outside it starts to rain. The doors open and the air becomes moist and dark as new patrons arrive and leave. There’s water on their coats and they’ve been caught by the sudden change in weather and don’t have umbrellas. Like me.
“Can you stay with me tonight?” she asks.
“I’d love to.”
“We could have sushi and watch bad movies until midnight.”
“That’s your idea of normal?”
We’d have gone out to dinner on Friday nights. They were strained now that I remember, but that was normal. But she’s pregnant and tired after a week at work. I don’t care anyway. I haven’t really gone anywhere in months.
“Normal enough. Do you need to go back to your flat?”
“No,” I tell her. “I’ve got a bag in the back of the Porsche just in case.”
“You know you are going to have to give that car back to Phillip eventually, right?”
“I know.”
I make her stay in the café while I run through the rain a block back to the station and get my car. I text her and pick her up at the front to save her the walk in the rain. I’m soaked to the skin and she laughs at me and appreciates the gesture.
We go up to her apartment together. She reaches over and takes my hand as we wait for our floor. We’ve held hands before but this was something different. This was natural, this was normal. I’m smiling as the doors open to our home, back in the place I belong.
She kicks off her shoes and heads down to the bedroom, her bedroom, to change out of her work clothes. I resist the temptation to follow her down there. I know I can’t. Not yet. Not there. Not in that bed. I change out of my wet things in the bathroom, put on a clean shirt and pants.
I find the sushi menu and order for us. Once again, familiarity comes to me like an old friend. Normal, Mary told her. This was normal. This was our life, only rebooted, only refashioned to make way for our flaws, our faults, our sins.
She comes out in a tee-shirt and pyjama pants and she look gorgeous. Her belly is noticeable now. Our baby girl is in there, I think, being built cell by cell. I’m glad that I’m here to see it, to experience the new life within her. I could have missed it. I could have let my anger poison me, poison us.
She takes my hand and leads me down the hall, to the spare room where she opens the door with much fanfare. The room has been cleared to one side. There is a single bed there, made up and ready with fresh sheets. A table sits next to the bed with a lamp and a picture. There is Quinn and me, from a holiday a few years ago, when we were happy. It’s not our wedding photo, thankfully. I still can’t look at it.
I forgive her again.
“You did this for me?” I ask, stopping me from yelling and throwing things.
“Yes. I can’t have you sleeping on the couch.”
I laugh. She'd have thought nothing of it six months ago. “But you shouldn’t have spent money on a bed. It’s only temporary.”
She places a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Anyway, I wanted you to be comfortable.”
I throw my bag onto the bed and she takes her hand away. I turn around and she’s standing there, hands on her hips and a smile on her face. She’s lovely and I forget about the wedding picture and Wade and I’m hugging her, kissing her.
“Thanks,” I say.
We eat our sushi on the lounge with the bad movie she has selected on the television. She snuggles up to me when she’s eaten, moulding herself into me as only she can do. Halfway through the second movie she falls asleep and we lay there until it finishes with her breathing against my shoulder gently and I’m imagining a life with her that’s long and full of joy. I help her to her feet and she walks down to the bedroom with me dreamily. Her bedroom is full of her perfume and I’m dizzy with memories. I lay her down and tuck her in and she sighs, falling back asleep almost immediately. The apartment falls into darkness as I climb into the bed that she has made for me. She wants me here so much that she is prepared to accept how that had to be.
Saturday
I find her in the kitchen the following morning. She’s singing quietly to herself and I cough and she stops suddenly and turns.
“Finally,” she says. “How noisy do I have to be?”
“You were plenty noisy,” I tell her, pouring myself some coffee she’s put on. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Today.”
“Ah. Well today won’t happen if you don’t get
dressed.”
“Sure.”
I look her up and down and she sees me do it. She’s wearing that same damn gown and now I’m having trouble hiding the fact on my face.
“Something wrong?” she asks archly.
“Nothing,” I say.
“What is it?”
I sigh. “That gown.”
She looks down. “What’s the matter with it?”
“You were wearing it the day I found out. You ran out of the room and started to tell me how sorry you were, and all I can think of is how you could have done this to us.”
She swears under her breath.
“There’s things all through this house I can’t look at,” I add. “I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.”
She pulls off the gown and tosses it into the trash.
“What else?” she asks me with that determined voice that says I’m never going to come out on top. “Well?”
She asked. “The bed, our wedding photo. Mostly the bed.”
She opens her mouth and stands there for a second of two. Her hand goes up to cover the gap. Then she turns her back and heads to the sink and the window that overlooks the city. She starts to cry silently and I’m aware that maybe I dropped this on her a little too carelessly.
I can’t stand to see her in pain now. I’d have enjoyed inflicting it before, but now I love her and it is just plain cruel. I come behind her, wrap my arms around her, encircling her around her middle. I whisper what she needs, what I need to say: she’s forgiven and these are just fading memories of a guy who just can’t let go. I will in time and it’ll be one of the hardest things I’ll ever do, but I will. I refuse to get bitter. I’m telling her this with as much determination that she’s used