by Megan Walker
“So I’m the idiot pulling on the door now.”
I try to catch her eye, but she avoids me. “Jenna, at some point in life, every one of us is the idiot pulling on the door.”
Jenna sighs. I can tell she doesn’t like this answer, but it’s the truth. “I’m just so tired of dealing with this,” she says. “I’ve felt peace about it before, you know? Like real, incredible peace, and long stretches of it, even. So why can’t I hang on to that? Why does it always slip away?”
I take her hand and hold it tight. I know exactly what she means. Meeting Ty and Jenna was the most singularly miraculous thing I’ve ever felt, but afterward, as we settled into being a family, I still felt this ever-present assurance that we belonged together.
The things I felt when we started attending church together felt like a natural extension of that. This simple belief that we’re not alone in the world, that God loves us, and he wants good things for us, even as he lets us struggle so we can grow.
But damn if one bad day—when the cravings overtake me and all I want is a needle in my arm—can’t wipe those things away so cleanly that I struggle to remember what comfort and stability felt like.
I don’t know what to tell Jenna. I don’t know what to tell myself when I slip into darkness. Logically I know that if I was in the right place before the darkness descended, that I must still be there after.
But say that to me on a bad day and I’d probably tell you to go to hell.
“It’s okay that you’re struggling,” I tell her. It’s the only thing I can think of to say that might help.
“I don’t want to struggle, though,” Jenna says. “It’s in the past. And I know I’m supposed to pray about it and forgive and let it all go, you know? I don’t understand why I can’t.”
I cringe inwardly. She is not going to like my answer to that, either. “I don’t think you’re ready to let go, yet,” I say. “I don’t think you’ve fully let yourself feel what happened to you. You haven’t processed it. Letting go happens after you deal with it. Everybody wants to get there, but you have to do the work first.”
“I’m so tired of working!” Her frustration is almost this physical thing, radiating off her. “All I do is work on this. I’m so sick of it. And I’m sick of having to talk to you about it over and over, being a burden when we’ve been through this before.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Jenna sniffs. “Well, I do.”
“I love you,” I say, tilting my head so it presses against hers.
She nods. “I know.”
It doesn’t bother me that she doesn’t say it back. I know Jenna loves me, loves our family, more than anything.
“I’m sorry.” She closes her eyes tightly again, and my heart breaks for her pain.
I kiss the top of her head, and let my lips linger there for a moment. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
In the next room, Rachel starts to wail. Jenna moves to get up, but I hold up a hand. “I’ll get it,” I say. I walk into the other room to get my daughter, whose needs I have at least half a chance of being able to meet, even though she can’t express them except by screaming.
I scoop up Rachel, who is clearly hungry, and head downstairs to make her a bottle and get Ty started on his homework. Jenna stays upstairs in our room, and I’m glad she’s getting some rest, at least. Still, I can’t help but remember what Alec said years ago, that she has a habit of running away when she’s scared and doesn’t know what to do.
I don’t think for a minute she’s going to leave me, but shutting down like this is another way of running. I’m going to text Josh in the morning to ask if he has any advice.
Living with Anna-Marie, he’s got to know something about being with a woman you’re afraid might run.
Seven
Josh
I head home early that day to meet Anna-Marie, who is due back in the late afternoon. She has a friend she met using Uber who is now her regular ride home from work, though they took it off the app months ago. I’m glad she’s found someone she’s familiar with, and the woman is a mom with kids who uses her minivan to make money on the side, so she’s not exactly dangerous.
The minivan pulls up when I’ve been home about ten minutes. Anna-Marie opens the door, sees me waiting for her, and she smiles. “Hey! You’re home early.” Her smile slips when she sees my expression. Of the two of us, it’s a good thing she’s the actress. “What’s wrong?”
“Come have a drink with me,” I say. “We need to talk.”
Anna-Marie wilts slightly, and she kicks off her shoes, which are new and strappy and probably killing her feet. “Is this about IVF? Because I made an appointment for a consultation, but we could reschedule it further out if you—”
“No. This isn’t about us.” I wish by saying that, I could make it not affect us at all, but I know that’s not going to be the case.
We walk in to the kitchen, and Anna-Marie perches on a stool at the marble-topped island while I pour us each a glass of our favorite white wine. It’s still light out, and our kitchen is bright and airy from the skylight and the huge picture windows in the attached open-concept dining room—a huge selling point for us when we picked the place.
Anna-Marie frowns at the wine bottle. It’ll be her second glass of wine in as many days, but since we’re taking a break from actively trying to get pregnant, I doubt that’s what’s causing her uneasy expression.
She plants her elbows on the surface of the island. “You’re worrying me, Rios.”
I set her glass in front of her and let out a breath. “Ben and Wyatt are separating.”
Anna-Marie stares at me. “Separating what?” She asks this carefully, like she’s sure it can’t be what it sounds like.
“Ben moved out this morning.”
“Shit,” she says, her blue eyes wide. “No way.”
“It’s true. I had breakfast with him. Turns out they’ve been arguing a lot, because Wyatt wants a baby, and Ben doesn’t.”
Anna-Marie presses her lips together.
“I know,” I say. “You sympathize with Wyatt, but I don’t think Ben is the bad guy here.”
“No?” Anna-Marie says. “Because Wyatt has been talking about having a baby forever. It’s not like he sprang this on him.”
“I know,” I say. “I guess Ben thought someday he wanted kids, and has figured out now that he doesn’t.”
Anna-Marie cocks an eyebrow at me. “This is supposed to be convincing me this isn’t Ben’s fault.”
“It’s not just that. Wyatt is basically saying he wants a baby more than he wants to be with Ben.”
Anna-Marie’s jaw drops. “He said that?”
“I think it’s more that his actions say that. And Ben feels abandoned, and I don’t really blame him. I mean, would you kick me out if I didn’t want to have kids?”
Anna-Marie considers this for a moment, which seems like it should bother me, but I actually appreciate that she’s taking the question seriously. “No,” she says. “It would be really hard on our marriage, though.”
“I agree. But I don’t think that would end it.”
“But Ben could give Wyatt what he wants,” she says. “He’s choosing to put that in front of Wyatt. Is that so different?”
I take a sip of wine while I consider this. “I don’t know. I feel like people who don’t want to have kids shouldn’t have them, you know? It’s not fair to the child. And seems like that could cause a lot more marital problems.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Anna-Marie swirls her wine around in her glass, but doesn’t drink it. “But we wouldn’t leave each other over that.” And while she says it like a statement, I get that she wants assurances about us—even though our problems are practically the polar opposite of this.
“No,” I say. “We wouldn’t. But you’d leave me if
I cheated on you, so maybe everybody has their things.”
Anna-Marie looks up at me. “What are your things?”
That question catches me off guard. I guess I hadn’t really thought about the implication that I must have them. “Let me think about it.”
Anna-Marie takes a long sip of her wine, and looks out the dining room window, where leaves rustle on the enormous white birch tree. I want to tell her that I’d never leave her, not for any reason. But it felt true, what I said. Everyone has things that they can’t deal with, the worst thing their partner could ever do to them.
“I think if you shut me out,” I say. “If you wouldn’t talk to me, work through things, that would be really hard for me. It wouldn’t poison our marriage overnight, but if it happened for years and years—decades, maybe—I think that would destroy me. Ultimately, I don’t think I could be in a marriage where we didn’t talk to each other.”
Anna-Marie nods slowly, taking this in.
“But it would be a lot of years,” I say. “And I’d talk to you about it, lots. And I’d beg you to go to therapy again.”
“I’d go,” she says. “I’m not always the best at talking about how I feel, but I try to be open with you, and if I wasn’t, you’d call me on it.”
“Right. So that’s not going to happen. Just like I’m never going to cheat on you.”
Anna-Marie nods, like this satisfies her. “It just seems like it’s important to know how I could mess this up.”
I reach across the bar and take her hand. Her fingers are warm in mine. “I suppose that is a comfort, knowing what would destroy us, so we can avoid it.”
“Ben and Wyatt didn’t see this coming, though.”
“No, they didn’t.” I wince. “And I told Ben he could stay with us. If you’re okay with it.”
“Ah,” Anna-Marie says. “That’s why you’re home so early. You needed to talk to me before Ben gets off work.”
“Yep. I figured that was better than you finding out when he shows up on our doorstep with suitcases.”
She acknowledges the truth of this with a tip of her wine glass.
“But,” I continue, “if you don’t want him here, he could stay with my parents.”
Anna-Marie waves a dismissive hand, and her ring catches in the light. At a full two carats, it should. “It’s fine. But am I not supposed to call Wyatt to see how he’s doing?”
“You can call,” I say. “But I don’t think we should meddle.”
“But what if it’s for their own good?”
“I think they need to figure this out themselves,” I say. “But you can talk to Wyatt. Just don’t try to be a go-between, okay?”
Anna-Marie mock-pouts at me, and I shake my head at her, smiling, and let her hand go to take a drink of my wine. We seem to have gotten through that minefield all right, which is worth celebrating.
“I talked to Felix Mays today,” I say.
“Really? About signing Axel Dane?”
“I signed the kid. But no. Weirdly, I went to lunch with Felix and we talked about Ben, and about Felix’s marriage. Did you know Jenna’s having a hard time?”
“No.” Anna-Marie cringes. “I’ve kind of been avoiding Jenna for a while.”
Ah. “Because of the baby thing.”
She sighs. “I know it’s terrible of me—”
“No, I get it. I wasn’t all that eager to talk to Felix for that reason, either. But it was fine.”
Anna-Marie twists the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, and I can tell she feels guilty.
“I know stuff about Jenna now,” I say. “But I’m not sure if I should tell you.”
Anna-Marie looks up at me sharply. “I’m your wife. You’re always allowed to tell me.”
“Sure,” I say. “But do you want to know? Because then you might know something that you can’t talk to Jenna about, since she didn’t tell you, and I don’t want to make it weird.”
“It’s not weird. If I want to talk to Jenna about it, I will. And she’d understand, because you’re my husband. You’re not supposed to keep secrets from me.”
I don’t, usually, but I just told her not to meddle with issues between Ben and Wyatt, and I don’t want to turn around and meddle in her relationships. “It’s just, I know sometimes it’s better to hear things directly from the person. Like, Felix said some things about you and Gabby, but I don’t think you should hear that stuff from me.”
Anna-Marie’s mouth falls open. “What?”
Shit. That was not what I was supposed to say. “For just that reason,” I say. “Because I don’t want to get in the middle of your friendship, and I don’t want to put Felix in the middle, either.”
She sets down her wine glass. “He put himself in the middle already if he told you things you can’t tell me.”
“He didn’t tell me not to tell you. I just think it would be better if I didn’t, and you and Gabby worked things out on your own.”
Anna-Marie straightens up on her stool. I’m clearly making this worse rather than better, but I don’t know how to stop.
“Worked out what?” she asks. “How am I supposed to know what to work out when I don’t even know what the problem is?”
“It’s nothing. Really, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Of course you should have! If you know something that directly involves me, you have to tell me. That’s spousal privilege.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “There are plenty of things that involve me that I don’t want to know if you know them.”
“Name one.”
“Like that time you told me Wyatt thought I wore the blue suit too much.”
Her brow furrows. “I told you so you could decide if you wanted to wear it less. If I didn’t give you the information, you couldn’t make an informed decision.”
“But now every time I wear the blue suit, I worry I’m wearing it too much. It’s my favorite suit, and now I can’t wear it as often. I would rather not have known.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Anna-Marie snaps. “If I’m wearing something you don’t like, I’d want you to tell me. I don’t want you to find me unattractive.”
“Just because I don’t love a particular piece of clothing doesn’t mean I find you unattractive.” This conversation is getting away from me rapidly, but I still don’t know how to stop it. “Like those new cuff links I liked. Until you told me they looked like bowling balls.”
“They do look like bowling balls.”
“I know! And now that’s all I can see.”
“That’s different,” Anna-Marie insists. “Those are cuff links. This is a problem with my best friend.” She’s getting increasingly agitated, and even if I don’t want to meddle, it’s clearly the lesser evil at this point.
“Okay, look. I’ll tell you, okay? Felix said that Gabby thinks you’re avoiding her. That you guys haven’t been talking, and aren’t as close as you used to be, and it bothers her.” I take a deep breath.
“That’s it?” Anna-Marie says flatly.
“Yes.”
“Why wouldn’t you be able to tell me that?”
“Because,” I say, “I think you and Gabby should talk about it, not you and me.”
“But how would I know that I need to talk to Gabby about it when you didn’t tell me there was a problem?”
“Are you avoiding her?”
Anna-Marie purses her lips, and the guilty look confirms it, even though I already knew. “Things have been weird since she had the miscarriage. I wanted to be there for her, but she didn’t seem to need me, and I didn’t want to keep bringing up my issues . . .” She shakes her head. “So yeah, I have been. And I hate myself for it.”
“Which I understand,” I say. “I do. So I don’t want to pressure you to talk to her.”
“I don’t f
eel pressured. I just hate that you didn’t think you could tell me. You’re my husband. You’re always supposed to tell me things you learn from other people if they involve me.”
“Really,” I say. “Always.”
“Yes, always.”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Fine. I’m just going to make sure I never talk to anyone who might tell me anything that involves you again.” My pissy tone isn’t going to help things, but I can’t help it.
Anna-Marie glares at me. “You’re my agent. It’s your job to learn things about me and tell me about them.”
“I mean personal things. Of course when it comes to your career, I’ll inform you. But I don’t have to talk to Felix and have him tell me things Gabby said. It’s so incestuous. Forget it. I’m not going to talk to him anymore.”
Anna-Marie throws her hands in the air. “You should be able to be friends with whoever you want!”
“And I don’t want to be friends with Felix Mays. It’s too weird, and it’s causing this fight, and I’m done.”
“You can’t just stop being friends with people just because we had a fight about it!” Anna-Marie says. “Then I’m going to feel like I can’t tell you how I feel about things without you having to not be friends with people.”
My stomach drops. “So, what? Now you’re not going to tell me things just to punish me for not wanting to be friends with someone I didn’t want to be friends with in the first place?” I’m really not sure how we’ve argued so far afield. It’s not like Anna-Marie and I can’t or don’t fight, but this is getting ridiculous even for us.
“I just think you should be allowed to have friends, and still tell me when people say things that directly involve me. What’s so hard about that?”
“It puts me in a position I don’t want to be in,” I say. “If I hadn’t learned that thing about you and Gabby, then I wouldn’t have had to tell you.”
