midday.
"Where did that come from?" I ask her with both brows raised.
"I don't know. I guess I've been thinking about my family and my roots, and something Mary said to me yesterday. And I've been praying - for you and Rachel mostly."
"I appreciate that."
"I don't know if it works, but it seems to have been."
"That could possibly be a co-incidence."
"Maybe. You could come," she suggests.
"A Jewish man, raised by atheists, goes into a Baptist Church. Sounds like a joke to me."
I shrug. "Are you reading this now?"
"I am."
"Why?"
"Why not? I'm going to church now. I'm praying. Why would you think I wouldn't be reading that as well?"
"I don't know. I guess that we've never gone in for that sort of thing before. Why now?"
She shrugs this time. "I guess everything that we've been through has made me think about where I've been and what kind of person I've become. And so I'm making some changes. I don't know what I believe yet, I just know I want to be a better person."
"I understand."
"And talking to Mary, praying, going back to church, that's helped me. Maybe reading that will help me too. I don't know."
And then the stage is empty. The microphone stands alone.
Rex stands quietly to the side, looking over us all, looking for some sign. And he gets it. Quinn stands, lowers her gaze to the floor. I'm still holding her hand.
"What are you doing?" I ask her in a whisper, but she doesn't reply.
Rex waves her over and she pulls against my hand.
"Let me go, Judd," she says.
"Are you sure?"
She nods and gives me a little smile. I let her hand slip from mine and watch her walk slowly down the aisle between the lines of chairs. She stands before the microphone, says nothing, looks down.
I guess she's praying.
"Well, we're a team, you and I. A team again."
"Soon to be a team of three." She takes a deep breath. "Here we are again. The eighth month."
"Yeah. Is she moving around in there?"
"She doesn't stop."
"And those pains?"
"They come and go. But that's normal."
I kiss her, more to reassure myself then her. "We'll keep praying that she gets here safely."
"Way ahead of you," she says and kisses me back.
Now I'm wondering what she would be doing right now if it was me on the table, under the knife. I know what she wouldn't be doing. She wouldn't be laughing at the people that love me talking to some higher power on my behalf. She'd be joining them. She'd be praying. She'd be praying for me.
And now I find that I'm sliding from my chair, onto the floor.
"Judd?" Jen says. "Are you okay?"
I don't speak. I slide down onto my knees and bow my head.
"What are you doing, Judd?"
"I'm doing what Quinn would be doing in my place. I'm doing what the others are doing. I'm praying."
"Seriously?"
"Maybe there's nobody up there that can hear me. Maybe I'm just talking up into the ceiling. Or maybe there is something up there. Call it God or the universe or whatever. All that matters is that we send out our hope, or love, for Quinn. She needs it, more than she's ever needed it. And it might be pointless, who knows, but it's all we can do right now."
Jen looks at me like I've gone insane right there and then. I guess she wouldn't blame me. But she doesn't call my crazy, she doesn't fight, she just slides off her chair and onto her knees, next to me. She folds her hands in front of her.
"Is this right?" she says humbly. I've never heard her speak that way. There is no more humbler place than on your knees.
"How would I know? I'm a Jewish Atheist."
"Seriously? You have those?"
"Oh, yes. It's a very proud tradition in the Altman household."
"So what do we do now?"
"We pray."
"I don't know what to say."
"The words will come to you,' I say.
And they come to me:
So, here we are. I'm been a while since we've properly talked. I long while.
I can't help but feel that you've set me up, that you've made everything happen the way it happened just so I'd talk to you. But I have no evidence for that, so...
Anyway, you know why I'm here, because you're supposed to know everything. And you're supposed to know the future so I wonder what the point is talking to you because you already know the outcome.
Can you change that because I'm talking to you now, asking what I'm about to ask you? Or is the future set? Are you powerless to change it?
But I have to believe that it's not already determined. I have to believe that it can be changed. I have to believe that someone, anyone, even you, can change it.
I have to believe it because I can't imagine a future that doesn't have her in it.
I don't know what's going on inside her. I don't know what she believes. I just know that she starting to believe in you again. She starting to pray like I am now, probably a lot better at it than me, but then I don't really have the practice. You know me, the odd word from time to time, but nothing like this. But she's been praying. She'd be here, praying for me if our places were switched, I know that. And she's been reading your book, and she's been going to your church. It sounds like she's coming back to you.
And I kind of made fun of her. I'm sorry I did that. It's just that I don't believe, I never have. I wonder if I've been wrong about you all this time. I wonder if you'd given me my lovely wife all those years ago to care for, love and cherish. But I screwed it up. And then maybe you gave me a second chance and I almost screwed it up again. Are you teaching me lessons? Is this the final exam? Because I'm sorry, I just don't know the answers.
Or maybe I do. Maybe it's the letting go that's important. Maybe I need to let her go like I've let Penny go and like she's let Wade go. But what does that mean? Do I let her go so that she's free to be herself? Do I stop imposing on her what I think she should be? Do I let her go to the mercy of her fate?
Or do I let her go, into your hands, hands that she's beginning to trust, so that you can do your will in her life?
Grant talked about words of life, and I've tried so hard to speak them into her. I want to do that now. I want to speak those words to you, those words of life. I want to tell you what she means to me. I want you to know that I can't live without her. I want to plead for her, for her life.
And then it's up to you. I give her to you. I put her into your hands. There is nothing else I can do. I've loved her. I've protected her. I've cherished her like I should have. But I'm at the end. There is a line that I can't go over. But you can.
I've always loved her - right from the beginning, from the very moment that I saw her. And I've loved her for so long, but I didn't know how to show it to her when she needed it and I hurt her. I allowed us to drift apart, and I didn't even know that it was happening. I lost her.
But then we found each other again. It happened all so fast that I can barely follow it. You gave us the child we needed to bring us back together. But Rachel was only the beginning. I had to forgive her. I didn't know what that meant at the start. I guess I thought it would be enough to keep us civil while we brought Rachel up together, but apart. But forgiveness has a way of growing on you. Before I knew it I was forgiving more than I imagined. And she forgave me for what I did to us. Neither of us was without blame, but somehow that didn't matter. Because we were more important than those things we did, and those things just faded into memory.
And I've heard rumours that you forgive too. Is your forgiveness like that, like what Quinn and I have, because if it is, then I could use some of that. I've done things, horrible things. I need to start again.
So I'm sorry. I'm sorry most of all for ignoring you all those years. I'm sorry for only talking to you when I need something. Like now. I need something now.
And now that I've found her again, I find that I love her more than anything else I have in this world, except for Rachel, sleeping in her bubble right next to me. I can't believe that now that we've found each other that I might lose her again, and this time for good. I can't think of my life without her. I don't want to imagine it. It's a more terrible thought than thinking that she might go back to Wade, or someone else. I can't and I won't live without her.
But Rachel will need a dad, and so I will struggle on if I have to.
So please don't let her die. Please don't take her away from me. Give the doctors all the skill they need to save her. It's late, and they're tired. Give them the strength to do what needs to be done.
People bargain at times like these. I know they do. I don't know what I'd give you as a price for you stepping in here. I don't have anything really. I have only a small cupboard of things. The only thing I have of value is my family - Quinn and Rachel. I don't even think my own life is worthy enough for a gift for Quinn's. But I'd give that freely anyway. I'd give up anything for her, including myself - everything I am, everything I have, everything I am going to be. My hopes, my dreams, my love, my future, I'd give it all to you for her. I place all of that in your hands. I place my family in your hands. I place Quinn and Rachel in your hands. I place myself in your hands, such as I am: broken, inept, disconnected, confused, afraid, unsure, and just damn scarred out of my mind.
And after I've done that, I ask that you'll do what you think is best. I can't do anything else. I have to accept the outcome, no matter what happens, because, for some reason, I know you'll give me the strength to face it.
I love her. Bring her back to me.
I'm crying. I'm on my knees. My face is on the floor. My hands are next to my temples, balled into fists. I'm crying so much I've brought the attention of the nurse.
"Mr Altman? Are you okay?"
Jen must have whispered something to her and she leaves. I couldn't hear what she said. Because I'm crying.
Jen puts a hand on my back, slowly rubs up and down my spine. She wants to comfort me, but nothing can get through the pain, nothing can breach my grief.
I lost her. I found her. Now I've lost her again.
4.15 am
Jen and I walk back to the waiting room. Rachel is sleeping. The nurse is taking good care of her. In truth I can't think of my baby right now. All I can think of is Quinn, lying there, opened up, her innards on display, the doctors frantically trying to control the bleeding inside her. It's been four hours. Four of the longest hours of my life.
Out in the waiting room the others are spread out, like their substances don't mix, breaking up into their components. Quinn's parents are sitting with Mary. They're the only one's still praying. That makes sense I suppose. My mother, Wendy and Phillip are together, just sitting there in stunned silence, as I would have imagined them to be. Chloe and Wade are in the corner. She's in his arms and I guess he's back in her good graces, or certainly getting there. I can't see Becca or Mike. I presume they went home. Allan joins his wife.
"I'm going to get another cup of that horrid stuff they call coffee from the vending machine," Jen says, her hand on my arm. "You want some?" When I shake my head she leaves me with Allan.
My mother looks at my face and stands.
"Holy crap, Judd!" Phillip exclaims.
"Have you heard?" my mother asks.
I shake my head.
Wendy quickly gets to her feet. "For a second there, I thought they'd told you that..." She can't say anything more, her face finishes her sentence.
"Do I really look that bad?"
"Oh, my darling boy, you look exactly the way you should look. Come and sit."
I sit next to her. All these people sit around, but they don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. There are no words for what I'm feeling, what we're all feeling.
"It's okay to cry," my mother says. I expect her to suggest that I could laugh if I wanted to, but she doesn't. There is nothing remotely funny about this situation.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. I think I've just about cried myself out these last few months, and to be honest I've cried more this past hour than I ever have. I don't think I have any tears left."
"That's okay too."
"I'm going to lose her."
"You don't know that."
"It's been four hours, mom, and we haven't heard anything. That's not good. We all know that's not good."
"I'm sure that they're doing everything they can."
I nod. "I know. But sometimes it's not enough. We were fighting before she... before she delivered. Our last moments were full of anger and pain."
"She knows you love her. She took that into the operating room. That will help her get through this."
"That and the praying."
She chuckles. "You heard about that?"
"You were praying?"
"It might surprise you to know that I do pray from time to time. The older I get, the more I do it. I guess I'm getting closer to the great unknown and I'm hedging my bets."
I laugh.
"But I'm not praying to Jesus," she adds. "I draw the line there."
"I'm sure dad will understand either way."
"He always did."
I yawn, look at my watch. Four thirty. Tiredness is taking me.
"You can put your head in my lap," my mother says. Normally I wouldn't, but I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and it sounds like the best idea I've heard in a while. So I lay along the chairs in an impossibly contorted manner and put my head into my mother's lap. I remember doing this as a kid and now I wonder why I haven't done this in years. To be so cradled, so cared for, so loved. She strokes my hair and I find that I'm drifting away, taken by the tide into deeper waters.
The elevator dings at my floor and I enter our apartment. I put my bag down into the chair in the dining room and call out her name. In my hand is her birthday cake. Chocolate. Her favourite. Three candles flutter as I move. She's thirty three today.
Quinn always takes the day off on her birthday. It's a tradition. I've got out of work early. Wade has ducked out because he's tired. I'm going to surprise her.
I can hear music in the bedroom. I push through the door, calling her name.
She's dancing next to the bed, still in her pyjamas. She's making it, folding the sheets down in time to some latest tune she likes. She doesn't hear me over the music but the flicker of the candles grabs her attention.
She smiles, laughs, claps her hands together, jumps over the bed. She stands in front of her cake. The candle illuminates her perfect features.
I love her. She loves me.
She leans in and slowly blows the candles out, one after another, deliberately erotic because she know what it does to me.
"Happy birthday," I tell her. "Did you make a wish?"
"I don't need to. I've got everything I need already."
She takes the cake from me and puts it on the table, next to the stereo. Then she grabs the front of my shirt and almost rips it apart.
"Make love to me," she says. How can I resist.
"I hope I never get tired of doing this," she says as we catch our breath.
"I hope so too," I say.
"Did you get me a present?"
"I thought I just did."
She laughs, slaps me on the arm. "Something else?"
"Later."
"Well, I have something for you. Your own birthday present."
"It's not my birthday for ten months," I point out.
"Well, it'll be a little early this year."
"Okay..."
"I'm late," she says, like it's a common place thing. Like it's just part of a conversation. But it's been brutally dropped in without mercy.
"Late?"
"Late."
"How late?"
"A week."
"That's not long."
"Well, as it turns out, long enough."
She turns, reaches over to her night stand
and pulls out a drawer. In her hand is a white plastic thing. I know instantly what it is. She hands it to me. There is a red plus sign on it.
"This means..." I begin.
She smiles that wonderful smile that I love. "We're pregnant."
"Really?"
She nods.
I take her in my arms, hold her tight.
"How do you feel?" she asks me quietly, into my shoulder.
"This is wonderful."
"Really? You're not terrified?"
"Oh, I'm terrified all right. Believe me. But I'm excited at the same time. And that makes it wonderful."
She pulls away. "I'm so happy that you're excited. I was worried."
"Really? Why?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it's hard to read you. I just don't know what you're thinking."
"I know," I say a little sadly. "And I hate that I do that, and I don't know why. But I don't want to be like that. I tell you what... I won't do that from now on, okay? I'll tell you how I feel. I'll let you in."
"Please, Judd, don't make promises you can't keep."
"I won't. And look, I know that I've been resistant about us seeing someone about the things between us, but if it's what you want then I want it too. We'll see someone, get ourselves straightened out. We have a baby on the way."
She's smiling again, and I think she's starting to cry. "Yes, we do."
"I know I haven't been the best husband, or friend for that matter, but that stops today. I love you, Quinn, and I don't want to stop loving you. Not ever."
"Me too. And I haven't been the best wife either. I almost did something so terrible that it's been eating me away inside for a year now. It's so horrible that I couldn't tell you."
"What?"
"I can't say. Please don't make me say it."
"Quinn. You said almost."
She nods, and swallows. "We were in such a bad place. I was grieving, I still am I suppose. And... anyway, I was looking at Wade, I mean really looking."
"Wade?"
"I know. It's stupid. The man is a fool. But back then he was exciting and different and an escape from thinking about Thomas. But then I realised what I'd be risking. No matter how hard it was for us, we weren't worth throwing away like that. I mean, I love you. I couldn't do that to you, to us. I couldn't destroy everything just to sleep with him for whatever reason."
4.50am
"Judd..."
My mother is shaking me awake. I look up with blurry eyes. I sit up, rub them to clear my vision. Everyone is standing except my mother and me. That changes in an instant.
A man is standing at the doorway into the corridor. He's wearing blue. Blue pants, blue shirt, blue slippers, blue hat. I know him. He promised to do his best, his very best.
I walk to him. He looks tired, like he's been operating for the last few hours. And he has. On Quinn. His head is bowed and he's taking deep breaths. I can't see his face.
I'm in front of him. He looks up, takes another deep breath, opens his mouth to speak. "Mr Altman..." he says.
Download regularly the Episode Guide for updates on this series. Additionally there is an Adult version (contains adult themes, coarse language, sexual references, high-level sex scenes and some violence) and downloadable audio books of these episodes (adult version).
Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 25 Part Two - "Thirty Six Part Two" (PG) Page 2
