“Judd? He’s right here. He’s driving.”
I’m throwing my hands up in the air. He’s talking about losing a tooth and being high and I’ve come and got him and how Chloe’s mad with him. All the while I’m looking for somewhere to pull over and there’s nowhere.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll tell him. Bye.” He hangs up.
“Hey!” I yell at him.
“What?”
“What did she say?” I yell at him, or rather, keep yelling at him.
“She want’s to meet you after work at your usual place,” he said happily, grinning like a fool.
I pull into his building, into that carpark underneath.
“I’m sure Chloe is about to wipe that stupid smile off you face,” I tell him.
We ride up to his floor and I knock on his door and Chloe opens up and she sees her husband. I push him through the door and she makes way for him.
“He’s all yours,” I tell her. I don’t wait for her reply. I’m at the elevator. I’m meeting with Quinn and she has some explaining to do.
Quinn is waiting at our new coffee shop when I get there. She’s not dressed for work and I know that she’s not trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t there. I relax a little, but she’s still kept something from me. Maybe she wants to explain.
“Hey,” I say.
I lean in and kiss her on the forehead. She’s smiling and I’m disarmed.
“What was all that with Wade?” she asks.
“I’ll tell you in a minute.”
She shrugs. I order our coffee and return.
“What’s up,” I ask her after I sit down.
“I called in sick today.”
“Were you sick?”
“Not exactly.”
“So...”
“You know I’ve been working through something the last few days.”
“Yeah.”
“I think I know what I have to do.”
“Okay.”
She takes my hands and squeezes them, even my right. I wince with the pain, but my eyes remain locked on hers. “I need to renew my vows to you. No. Not renew. I need to make new vows. Like I’ve never made any to you at all.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
She pulls her hands away. “Don’t tell me what I need.”
“I didn’t mean that,” I say testily. I’ve been running around all day after missing people and I was tired.
“Judd,” she says sharply.
I take a breath. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You don’t know what sort of day I’ve had. Tell me. I’ll listen.”
“I need to do this, Judd. I’ve broken the ones I had with you before. I didn’t do it lightly, but that doesn’t matter. They’re broken and I can’t forgive myself. But maybe I can if I make new promises, ones that I’ll keep.”
“I think I understand.”
“Good. And you don’t have to do anything. This is just me.”
I remember Penny. I remember that delicious afternoon lying naked on her bed, thinking that maybe I could have a life with her and leave Quinn behind.
“But I do,” I tell her sadly. “This is not just you. I broke mine too, when I should have held on to them.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod sadly. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?”
She smiles but there is a deep regret in her eyes. “But I need to ask something big. I don’t know if it’s too much after everything and how far we’ve come and what I’ve said to you before.”
“What?” My mind is racing.
“You know how you’ve been working really hard to get Wade out of your head when we...” She leans in. “...When we’re in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve got something in my head too and I can’t let it go.”
I sit back. “Right,” I say.
“It’s these vows,” she continues. “I want to do this right. I want to be new and pure for you. I want everything to be perfect. You understand?”
And I do understand. I’ve been trying to erase a memory of secret lust and betrayal that has been haunting me. I desperately wanted our time to be good and new. Pure was something I hadn’t thought of, but now she’s said it I cant shake the rightness of it.
“Yeah,” I say. I’m starting to cry and I don’t know why.
“You do?” Her eyes are full of tears.
“So, you want us to be apart until we can do our vows again?”
She’s nodding.
“I guess I could move back into the spare room.” I muse. “When are we doing this?”
“Soon,” she says. “That’s what I was doing today.”
“What? You disappeared and I was worried. No. I was frantic. I couldn’t reach you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So what was it you were doing?”
“I can’t tell you. But you’ll find out soon enough.”
“So I just trust you then?”
“I know I haven’t given you much reason to in the past, but yes.”
“Okay,” I say, then close my eyes. “About trust...”
“Yes?”
“I may have been a little... sort of harsh with Jess at your work. I accused her of covering for you.”
“What did you think I was doing?”
“I don’t know. You weren’t where you said you were going to be. You were missing and Wade was missing. I just got crazy. Crazy jealous. I’m sorry.”
Quinn screws her eyes shut, balls her fists, then relaxes. “That’s fair,” she says. “Jess did cover for me a few times. She hated it, she hated lying to you. She said I should come clean. But you need to trust me. I’m done with him, understand? I want to make new promises with you, not him.”
“I know that.”
“But I do like it that you get jealous. I know you’ll fight for me.”
“I did yesterday.”
“What?”
“Wade was going crazy. He said some things about you. I got angry and I punched him in the face.”
“You didn’t say that it was about me.”
“No,” I say ruefully. “But it wasn’t really about you, but you were mentioned. Well, he can say what he likes about me. I don’t care. But you, that’s a different matter altogether.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“Maybe not, but I won’t hear a bad word about you. And I’ll punch in the face anyone that does.”
I hold up my hand and she looks at my swollen fingers sticking out of the bandage.
“You need to get that looked at,” she says, worried.
“I know. Tomorrow.”
She shakes her head and I lean in to speak to her quietly. “This not sleeping together thing...” I say.
“Yes?”
“Does that mean we can’t do other things?”
“Yes. But we can do this...” She leans forward and kisses me and she takes my breath away.
I watch her as she walks back to my car. I love to watch her, to see how her pregnancy is changing her. She’s really showing now, her belly now sticks out a way. The bump has me attracted, mesmerised. At night, as we wait for sleep, I hold that bump and caress it.
She gets very needy when she’s pregnant. We made love all the time when she was pregnant before, with our boy. This is why I know she’s serious about the vows, because she’s giving up the sex. And I was just about to banish my demons. It seems that were sacrificing a lot to grow together, and it’s hard but I figure that something worth fighting for should be hard. It should be a struggle to succeed - otherwise there would be no point to any of this.
The baby kicks as we drive home. She takes my hand as I drive and puts it under her top and onto the place. I’m laughing as our baby girl kicks away my hand and I nearly run us on to the sidewalk.
I tell her about my day as we lie in our usual place after dinner. I rub her feet, because apparently that sort of touc
hing is allowed. She is astounded that Wade could get himself in that much trouble in twenty four hours. But I’m not.
There are two dates in my future that I’m facing with a certain amount of dread. The first one I’m sure you can guess, but it’s about six months away and I’ve still got some time to prepare myself for it’s arrival. I’m not really worried about my own birthday. It falls a week after our baby is due and if she arrives on time then I’m sure that we’ll be way too busy to worry about a cake and a party. I wonder if we’ll even get out to dinner, but I think we won’t.
The day that’s coming rapidly upon me, like a month, is our anniversary. Last year we went away for a night. We said all the things that we say to each other. We professed our love without a thought. We had sex like we have done for the past year, perfectly adequate, perfectly satisfying. But it was all a lie. I was emotionally detached and she was sleeping with someone else. Our words of love were hollow.
It’s easy to look back at that time and dwell on it, on the problems that had been so abruptly highlighted. It is easy to wallow in those hard times, but that can destroy that good things you have. I know Quinn and I have problems, we still have the same issues as we had a year ago, but we know them, we own them, and we are moving past them. We are moving forward and that is what I choose to do. I choose to focus on the good things we have and the future we will have together.
I think we’re going to make it. I wasn’t sure three months ago, but I am now. Unless I do something stupid to fuck it up, then we’ll have many more years together. My greatest hope is that we will be married to the end of our lives.
And these thoughts lead me to an idea.
The ring on Quinn’s finger represented our previous life. It was pure and untainted in the beginning, but the ring was on when she slept with Wade and it has become almost a representation her infidelity. At least it has in my mind.
She has not put on her engagement ring,
Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 12 - "Twenty Three" (PG) Page 3
