All valid points. However, it made it difficult to connect with her husband when, every time she tried to explain her feelings, he cut her off with logical arguments instead of understanding what she was trying to share.
“Rachel, if you didn’t like the house, why didn’t you say so four years ago?”
If she’d spoken up the moment he proudly handed her the keys-the way she was trying to speak up now-would it have set a different tone for their marriage? “Because I did like the house. You were right, of course. It’s perfect for us, so it seemed childish to whine, ‘But I wanted to help pick it out.’ Only now it’s four years later, and half the time I feel like a part-time consultant on my own life, with you making unilateral decisions. I wish sometimes that instead of my moving to Mistletoe, where you already had a life established, we’d moved to a neutral location where we could build a life together from the ground up. Because-”
“You love Mistletoe! You always have.” He scowled at her, equal parts angry and confused.
Some days more than others. But this wasn’t about the town. She was trying to explain her feelings about them. “Damn it, David! Could you please just listen? I feel…extraneous. I daydreamed about brainstorming nursery themes with you,” she blurted, tears rising. “Looking through catalogs, discussing baby names…Unless you’ve already picked out one of those, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous to me, David. I…” She glanced around again, hating how wrong she’d been, feeling stupid for all that hope she’d been nurturing for the past week. “I had this image of the two of us, paint smears on our clothes and faces, standing in the middle of a nursery we’d created together.”
“I didn’t think the physical exertion and fumes would be good for you and the baby,” he muttered, intractable. “I’m sorry you don’t like the nursery. I can-”
“No! This isn’t about me being some shrew who doesn’t appreciate her husband’s kind acts. I like surprises. Smaller ones, anyway. This is about your entrenched mantra of ‘I can.’ David, why isn’t it ever we can?”
She knew she’d ruined the moment he must have been picturing, savoring, while he sweated over furniture assembly and wallpaper paste. She saw the wounded look deep beneath his rapidly cooling gaze and hated herself a little for putting it there…and hated him a little for putting her in this position. This was too important for her to nod politely and pretend she was overjoyed. She’d let lots of incidents pass unremarked-if you could call buying an entire house an “incident”-because they were sweet and she didn’t want to hurt him. But she couldn’t go back to their marriage the way it was. She needed-she deserved-a partnership.
“You make it sound like I don’t think about you. I did this for you,” David protested.
“If you really thought about me, if you really knew me…For a couple of months, I was unsatisfied at my job, partly because I’d fallen into a rut, partly because of the subliminal guilt my parents heap on me that I’m not doing anything more ‘important.’ I’ve come to terms with never again having the kind of salary I gave up, never being an executive or having the type of career other people see as important, but I should feel important in my own house. I should feel important to you.”
He was furious now, stomping past her as if he couldn’t wait to get out of that room. “I was trying to show you how important you are to me! I go out of my way to do things like this, to take care of you, to…And your reactions have varied from sullen acknowledgment to outright criticism. Most women would be thrilled to be married to a guy who thought to send flowers, who surprised them with grand gestures.”
“Then maybe I am not the woman for you!” Her pulse was racing, and she couldn’t believe she’d just yelled that at him. But this was crucial-the point she was trying to make, this was a deal breaker-and he wasn’t hearing her. Again.
David shot her a look of something perilously close to contempt. “Maybe you’re not.” Then he was gone.
At first she was too stunned to move, but when the front door shut, she sank to the floor, her eyes hot and dry. This felt too big for tears, the gaping hole that had just been punched through her. She didn’t know why she was so horribly shocked; after all, she’d known they were standing on a fault line and that one more good-size tremor might be more than their marriage could take at this point.
She just wished she hadn’t been so right about them in November and so wrong about them making the most of their second chance.
Chapter Fifteen
David watched his brother through an invisible wall of cynicism. I don’t remember being this discombobulated at my wedding. Was it because he was a more inherently organized person, or was there something wrong with him? Had he just not loved Rachel as much as Tanner loved his bride?
No, that was ridiculous. I loved that woman with everything I had in me. Not that it had been enough for her. He’d told himself for months that the reason he couldn’t make her happy was because she so desperately wanted to get pregnant that nothing else could make her happy. Yet here she was, finally pregnant, and still-
“David, I think I left my cuff links in the car!” Tanner said. “I’m supposed to meet Lilah and the photographer in just a sec. Would you mind…?”
“Of course not.” David easily caught the keys his brother tossed his way. “Stop messing with your tie, bro. It looks fine. I straightened it myself. And for pity’s sake, take a breath.”
“Right.” Tanner smiled then. “Right, thanks.”
See, had that been so hard? He’d given perfectly sensible advice, which Tanner had recognized and been grateful for. Tanner had not thrown an incomprehensible fit.
A much nobler part of David, which he’d tried to silence at the rehearsal dinner by sipping Scotch and not looking anywhere near his wife, asked, Is it really that incomprehensible that she wanted to have a hand in decorating the nursery? But it hadn’t just been that. It hadn’t only been that after his planning, after his hard work and soliciting Tanner’s help, that Rachel had rejected his gift-had practically thrown it back in his face. (How would she have felt if Tanner and Lilah had balked at that scrapbook she’d expended so much effort on? Instead, they’d laughed and cried and hugged her. All the responses he’d envisioned getting from Rachel.) What had chilled David to the core was how easily she’d snapped that maybe she wasn’t the right woman for him. It had sounded ominously like a threat. He’d recalled with brutal clarity the shock of when she’d left him in November.
Was that how it would be now, the specter of separation hanging over him like a married man’s Sword of Damocles? Would he have to worry that whenever things got rocky at home, calling it quits would be her go-to solution? He couldn’t put himself through that. And what about after their child was born? Kids deserved a stable environment.
David’s righteous anger lasted from the walk at the back of the church, all the way to the front steps. As he descended toward the parking lot, Zachariah’s car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and Arianne and Rachel got out. Apparently there had been a hold-up at the hairdresser’s earlier. Lilah herself had arrived later than scheduled, her nerves frazzled when she reached the church.
The hairdresser might have been slow, but she’d done an amazing job with Rachel, whose black hair had grown so long in the past year-a result, she’d speculated, of the prenatal vitamins. Now, it was up in some kind of pretty twist, tendrils curling down around her face here and there. Her makeup was smoky and soft, or maybe that was just the pregnancy. He’d noticed the way she was softening more and more lately-well, in general, not with him. Her voice had been hard at the wedding rehearsal. She’d greeted him with exacting politeness, her gaze as warm as an ice sculpture.
He extended that same cool civility now, nodding as she passed. “Rachel.” As he averted his gaze, though, trying not to notice how fantastic she looked, it snagged on the top of her dress and the tantalizing view of full, ripe cleavage. That wasn’t appropriate for
church! But Arianne and Rachel were already hurrying past him and his wordless stupor, leaving him behind.
If it weren’t for the fact that he was the best man and took his responsibilities as such very seriously, he would be counting the seconds to the reception and the open bar.
THE GOOD THING about weddings, Rachel thought as she shifted her weight and tried not to look miserable in front of two hundred and eighty guests, was that no one thought anything of it if you cried. She’d wondered, as she first walked down the aisle to her position at the front, whether if she didn’t look at David, she could do this. But watching Tanner and Lilah-and the way they watched each other-made everything even worse.
We had that once. They were both good people, flawed but decent, and they’d loved each other very much. How had they let it go so wrong?
Then the vows had started, almost identical to the ones she and David had exchanged. The “richer and poorer” part had never really been an issue, but they’d failed spectacularly at the “better or worse” and “in sickness and health.” The promise that really haunted her, though, was “cherish and respect.” She recalled mood swings she’d had, excuses she’d made for not being intimate with him, days when she’d been so tempted to roll her eyes at his offering her or someone else advice that she’d forgotten entirely that she used to come to him for advice about everything under the sun.
Had she cherished her husband? She winced guiltily.
David, to give him his due, had tried to cherish her. He’d tried a lot more consistently than she had. But in doing so, time and again he’d failed to respect her opinions, preferences, her intellect and autonomy. Honestly, how much consideration had he really given to why that nursery set would be the one she would want the most, the one that was perfect for their child? Had he simply been swept away by the idea of once again sweeping her off her feet? My husband, the broom. Of course, as he’d so patronizingly pointed out, lots of other women would be grateful that their husbands cared enough to make sweeping gestures.
Weeks ago, she’d thought miserably that if she had a chance at taking back small moments in her marriage, she’d do it differently. Was her idea of improvement rejecting something he’d worked hard on, trying to make herself heard at the expense of his feelings? God, what a pair they were. Or weren’t.
Winnie would be home this week, and Rachel had no idea how she and David would proceed. They had some decisions to make. Unfortunately that would involve speaking to each other again, if they could trust themselves to have a conversation without yelling this time. Maybe that’s why some people went to lawyers in the first place, needing that third party. Lawyers. Her heart hurt at the thought.
At the sudden sound of applause, she barely kept herself from jumping. Belatedly, she turned to see Tanner and Lilah presented as husband and wife.
She’d missed the end of the wedding, too distraught over the end of her own marriage.
ZACHARIAH, wearing a tuxedo that matched both of his sons’, clapped David on the arm. “Should have known you’d be over here.”
David jiggled one of the index cards in his hand. “Practicing my speech.”
“That’s what I mean.” Zachariah laughed. “Instead of dancing with that beautiful wife of yours, you’re over here trying to make sure it’s absolutely perfect. Relax, son, no one’s going to grade you on this.”
David tried to smile, not quite accomplishing his goal. Luckily his father wasn’t looking at him.
The older Waide gestured with his champagne flute toward the dance floor where Tanner and Lilah only had eyes for each other. “They look so happy together, don’t they? As a parent, that’s all you can wish for your kids.” He smiled back toward David. “I know I wasn’t exactly a relaxed or laid-back role model, but when this baby comes, try not to sweat the small stuff. You and Rachel keep loving each other and make sure the little one knows how much he’s loved, and the rest will work itself out.”
David had always respected his dad’s opinion, but that sounded like the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. The rest will work itself out? Right. Witness his own happy home. Someone should warn Lilah and Tanner how much work marriage took. Then again, under the right circumstances, marriages lasted decades, entire lifetimes. That kind of payoff was worth the effort.
I made an effort.
He glanced across the room, saw his mother and Rachel sitting at a table and talking. From his vantage point, he could see that Rachel had kicked off her high heels and was wiggling her toes. In spite of everything else, the sight made him smile.
He and his wife certainly defined “effort” differently. He thought he’d been making an admirable effort putting together that nursery for her. And she thought she’d been making an honest effort to improve their relationship by pointing out why she hated that he’d done it. He frowned. Did she have a point?
It wouldn’t make for the wittiest or sexiest reception toast ever, but marriage required compromise. He could tell himself that he’d been working his tail off-trying to pay her more attention, sending her flowers, giving her space while still being persistent in fighting to salvage their marriage-but what had he actually compromised?
The question stumped him. Had Rachel ever asked him to give up anything other than sex on the nights she wasn’t in the mood and a few of his more high-handed ways?
Perhaps-that maddening inner voice was back-if you’d been a little less high-handed, she would have been in the mood a little more.
“David!” Arianne snapped her fingers, and he blinked, startled to find his sister standing in front of him, a worried look on her face. “Were you even listening to me?”
He was getting that a lot from women these days. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
She pointed to the corner of the room, where tall pieces of white lattice work draped in tulle formed an enclosure around a long table. The wedding cake and groom’s cake sat next to each other. “They’re going to cut the cake, but first we do our toasts.”
“What’s yours?”
“That I can’t imagine why any woman would willingly live with one of my brothers, but that even knowing what pains you and Tanner are, every time I see all that happiness shining from Lilah’s face, I get…jealous.”
He couldn’t believe that was actually her maid-of-honor toast, but knowing Arianne, maybe it was.
“Anyway,” she told him, “you go first. If yours is good enough, I’ll just add, ‘what he said,’ and we can get on with the party.”
All of the other members of the bridal party were gathered around the table, including Rachel. People naturally shifted so that he could be closer to his wife. Her body brushed his, and his entire system heated with wanting her. He could still clearly remember their own wedding-it had been tormenting all through the ceremony-and how enthusiastically they’d made love throughout their honeymoon. Rachel had lost that enthusiasm in the last year.
Some of that was an understandable side effect of the medications and disappointments, but…was he also to blame? Had David unintentionally made his wife feel unimportant to him, marginalized?
Tanner nudged him with his elbow. “You’re up. Bang a glass or something.”
David arched an eyebrow. “I’ve got it under control.”
“Good,” Tanner whispered back. “I just want everything to be-”
“Perfect?” David remembered his brother saying the same thing to him a few weeks ago as they shot hoops in their parents’ driveway. At the time, he’d been tempted to dampen his brother’s unrealistic hopes, but maybe those hopes were every bit as realistic as what a person was willing to invest. There were no perfect people, but that didn’t mean a man and a woman couldn’t be perfect for each other…as long as they worked for it. And, more important, worked together.
He held his glass, tapping it lightly with one of the forks he’d grabbed from the cake table. “Hello. I hope you’re all having a wonderful time today-” He paused unintentionally, worried about Rachel’s em
otional state. She couldn’t possibly be having a wonderful time. Had she been reliving the same memories as him during the ceremony?
“On behalf of my brother and his beautiful bride, thank you for joining us to celebrate their union.” He waited while good-natured applause and hurrahs erupted across the room. Then he glanced at the index card in his hand, and, meeting Rachel’s gaze, crumpled the paper.
Her eyebrows rose as he shoved it back in his pocket, but he didn’t think anyone else noticed.
“I had a speech all written out, full of brotherly advice about what it takes to make a good marriage, but what do I know?”
Rachel paled, as if he’d suddenly lost his mind and was about to announce to the entire town that his own marriage was a sham.
He gave her a bittersweet smile. “Because the truth is, marriage is a learning process and the very best person to teach you is your partner.” And I’m sorry for all the times I made you feel like less than an equal partner, he wanted to tell her. It was difficult to keep his voice even. “Tanner and Lilah, you may be surprised at how much you have to learn about each other, stuff you thought you already knew, how even when you think you’re getting it right…” What kind of husband was he? Why had it been more important to explain to Rachel why he was right than just to listen to her explanations about the effect his actions were having on her?
For that matter, what kind of brother was he? He’d trailed off in the middle of what was shaping up to be the worst best man’s toast of all time.
Rachel stepped forward, suddenly grabbing his hand and smiling. “The beauty of a good relationship is all the new things you’ll continue to learn about each other and about yourselves. Celebrate those surprises, celebrate your differences and celebrate the ways you learn to work around them to become an even stronger couple. We wish you many, many years of happiness and lots of love. Cheers!”
Feeling suddenly overwhelmed in front of all those people, including the one who mattered most to him, and as if he were suffocating behind his bow tie, David barely made it through Arianne’s quick, irreverent toast and the resulting laughter before he ducked around the corner of the makeshift wall. The back door was only a few steps beyond, and he slipped outside as surreptitiously as possible, feeling guilty for making an escape. He should have at least stayed long enough to thank Rachel for intervening, bringing his mangled monologue to a graceful close.
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