before and she believes it. At least I think she does. It sounds unbelievable, even to me. But I’ll do it or die trying. The alternative is too horrible to think about.
We’ve been seeing Grant and Mary for a month now. I have to admit that I’m getting comfortable in their presence, less self-conscious, more open. We were starting to become friends, at least that’s what I think, and I’m starting to look forward to seeing them.
Plus, they’re helping, really helping.
“Is there anything you want to say before we start?” Mary asks us.
Quinn leans forward. “Judd stayed the night a few times this week.”
“Good news,” Mary proclaims.
“Judd...?” Grant says.
“I guess it was time,” I say. “It had to happen sooner or later, and I guess this week felt right.”
“But not permanently?” Mary asks.
“Not yet. Maybe later. One thing at a time. But Quinn got me a bed, which was kind of special. I know she really wants me there now.”
“I do,” she says, nodding.
We move on in our discussion to after we lost our boy. Quinn is still hurting and she’s looking to me to understand. I’ve given up on having another child and in some way I’m blaming her for the loss of our boy and for not having another. I guess she’s right. I guess I’ve given up on her like I gave up on having another. I can’t talk to her about that, I can’t talk to her about anything. I’m shutting myself down because I don’t know any other way.
“I’m a little closed off,” I confess.
Quinn snorts.
“Thanks for the encouragement,” I say a little sarcastically. Grant gives me a look that tells me to stop.
“Quinn,” Mary says, turning to her, “do you have something to say?”
“Well...” she starts, sitting forward, “he’s great when it’s something that he wants, but lousy when it’s important or hard.”
“I’m here now,” I point out with the slightest hint of an edge.
“You want something.”
“I do. I admit it. But I know it’s not easy. I know I’m going to have to open up. That’s why I’m here, to learn how to do it. I wish you’d give me some credit.” I fold my hands across my chest. This had to happen at some point. We’d have to get angry with each other, it was inevitable.
“Stop,” Mary says. “Take a breath for a moment.” We do. “Now look at each other. Remember the body language.” We do that too. “You don’t think Judd can change?” Mary asks her.
“I do,” she says with a sigh. “I know he can. And I’m seeing it. I just worry about later, when we’ve got a new baby and we’re tired and he leaves me at home alone every day for work.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I say again. I think it’s self-explanatory, but I feel the need to point it out over and over. What else can I do?
“Judd,” Grant begins, “you said that you don’t know any other way.”
I nod.
“So, why do you think that is?”
“His whole family is like that,” Quinn jumps in and Mary admonishes her.
“She’s right,” I admit. “They are. Except for Phillip.” Quinn murmurs her agreement. “It’s the way we are.”
“Why is that, do you think?” Grant asks me.
“I don’t know. I guess we stopped talking about things about ourselves.” Then I stop. I know why. “The book,” I say under my breath.
“I’m sorry. What?” Mary says.
“The book,” I say louder now. “I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me.”
Quinn’s mouth is open. Her eyes are wide. “The book,” she says.
“I don’t follow,” Grant admits.
“When I was growing up my mother wrote a book about parenting. She put everything we did and said in that damn book. And I mean everything. She even read my sisters diary, put all that stuff in there.” I laugh to myself. “We stopped talking about ourselves because we didn’t want the whole world to know our secrets.”
“Do you think that had a bearing on the communication in your marriage?” Mary asks.
“Maybe,” I say, then I know. “Definitely.”
“No one is writing down what you say or feel now,” Grant points out. “Quinn isn’t writing a book about you.”
“I know that,” I say.
“This is what we’re talking about when we speak about learned behaviours,” Mary says. “Judd, you’ve learnt throughout your childhood to keep things to yourself so that you’re not betrayed by the one person you should trust the most. So, later on, with Quinn, who you should trust implicitly, you can’t open up to those things because you don’t know how to. You haven’t learnt to.”
“So this is all my mother’s fault?” I ask with a smile. It would be nice to blame someone other than Quinn and me for this horrible mess.
Grant sits forward. “You’ll realise when you have a child of your own that parents try to do the best they can, and they carry over from their own parent’s skills, or lack of skills, into their own style. Your mother has some element of responsibility in regards to how she brought you up, but how you take that and use that in your own life is your own responsibility.”
“Okay,” I say. I know all that but I can’t help feeling a little disappointed that I can’t pin something on her. “So, what are we going to do about this?” I ask.
“You’re doing what you need to do. You are opening up to Quinn and being honest with us. You’re learning new behaviours.”
“Quinn,” Mary says, “what do you think about this?”
“I guess I understand all of that, but I’m still kind of a little angry.”
“What about?”
“That Judd could be so damaged by his childhood. I’m as angry with that as I am about how my father treated me.”
“We are a product of how we were brought up,” Mary says. “But we can overcome the failings of our parents. They’re human too, they make mistakes, but understanding those mistakes means that you’re not doomed to repeat them with your own children.”
“I see great hope in you,” Grant says. “You’re both opening up wonderfully. Well done, both of you.”
“This is so hard,” Quinn says.
“It is. And it will take time. It took you both two years to get to this point. It will take at least that to heal things.”
“Way to burst our bubble,” I say wryly.
“You need to be honest with yourselves. This will take work and time. You both know that. Now,” he says then, “we have an assignment for you both: we want you to set aside a day or a night this next week. We want you to have a proper date. We want you to go out and have some fun together. We want you to forget everything that’s going on between you, and just enjoy each other’s company.”
“Remember how your first dates went,” Mary adds. “How you felt, what you did. Read your stories if it helps you to connect to that time.”
“And we want you to continue practicing this new kind of communication. We want you to look at each other as you talk.”
“And one more thing,” Mary adds, “we want you to think about questions you can ask your partner, things that you don’t know about them. Don’t ask questions that will bring you back to the place you are now. Some questions might be: where do you see yourself in five years? Or, maybe, if you’re feeling up to it, what is your favourite thing to do in the bedroom?”
I’m shocked, but I don’t show it. I look to Quinn and she turns to me. She knows what I’m thinking instinctively, like were one mind, the product of many years together. She raises her brows and then turns back to our councillors.
“Remember Mary spoke about communication earlier,” Grant says to me later, when the women have started out towards the car, leaving us at the door, “about the way we say things affects the message?”
“Sure,” I say, remembering every word.
“And remember we talked about saying different words, changing the behaviour of using to
xic words and replacing them with words of life.”
“I remember.”
“Well what I’d like you to do this week is to be intentional about what you say to Quinn, in particular speaking using good words. You’re moving back home slowly, and this is more important now than ever.”
“Intentional?”
“I mean, intentionally use your words. Choose them. I want you to speak life into her.”
“Okay,” I tell him as he stands and starts toward the door. Mary and Quinn have finished their discussion. She’s got an assignment of her own and I’m dying to know what it is. I’ll ask her in the car on the way home. Maybe I won’t. She’s been through a lot in the last hour and I’m worried about her, worried about her thinking on my failures and her rethinking what we’re doing. This was the danger in this: that healing causes hurt and sometimes that hurt is too much to bear. Sometimes the hurt just reminds you of what you’ve lost and makes you lose heart. Sometimes dredging things up causes more damage than good.
We walk to the car together while Grant and Mary stay at their door watching us. We don’t hold hands, we’re too raw, and we think we’re being analysed like lab rats. I move quickly and startle her, opening her door before she can even reach it. I haven’t done that much in a while and we’re both surprised. I don’t know why. Maybe it was what Grant said about speaking good words to her, being deliberate in what I say. Maybe I’m thinking that I should be doing good things for her as well, being deliberate about that too. My thoughts are moving too fast for me to keep track of them, to be sure I’m even thinking them or allowing instinct to rule me.
She slides into her seat