STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina

by Theodora Taylor

“I’m not trying to discourage you,” I say, gentling my tone. “I’m just saying, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Keep on applying for jobs around here. Maybe you can find something that’s a better match. Something in Charlotte where you have a support system.”

  My advice is solid, I know. It makes sense.

  But all the light has disappeared from Cami’s face, as she answers, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’ll keep on looking.”

  The day doesn’t go much better after that. It’s an all paperwork Monday which makes it feel like the hours are ticking by particularly slow as I wait for the 2pm appointment.

  I keep on checking my phone to see if Stone has called me.

  He hasn’t. Which only makes me worry more.

  But eventually the clock strikes 1:30, and I call out my early goodbyes as I leave for the appointment. I know Stone’s plane landed a little earlier this morning, and I’m hoping that maybe he’ll be waiting when I hit the lobby of a neat little office located in what looks like it used to be a church.

  But all the seats in Dr. Nouri’s outside lobby are empty, and Stone doesn’t show up until the very last minute.

  “Hey,” I say when he enters the narrow waiting area. He looks like a bull in a suit. And he’s glowering like I asked him to come here, not the other way around.

  “Hey,” he says, taking a seat beside me.

  No kiss. No eye contact, aggressive, disassociated or otherwise.

  “Is everything—” I start to ask, only to be interrupted by a woman, who looks to be in her forties opening the door.

  “Hi, you must be Stone’s wife, Naima. I’m Doctor Nouri.” She wears her hair in a neat bob and her intelligent eyes crinkle behind designer glasses.

  Friendly and capable, I think as we shake hands. I begin to feel a little more at ease as I follow her into her office.

  Dr. Nouri doesn’t bother with small talk, she gets right down to business. “Stone had some thoughts in his last therapy session. Thoughts he’d like to share with you.”

  So that’s what this was all about. Stone had a breakthrough. My stomach untightens, and I feel even more at ease. His last therapy session was last Wednesday before I suggested he see other people in New York. So this session probably has something to do with his grief breakthrough with Garnet.

  “So you have been talking to your therapist, not just sitting here in silence,” I say, turning to face Stone.

  “Course I have,” Stone answers, as if I just accused him of not changing his underwear every day. “That’s what you told me to do.”

  I crook my head, a little amused, because, “You don’t always do what I ask you to do.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he answers, his jaw ticking. “Other than going away and not dancing with you that one time, I’ve done every single thing you ever wanted me to do. And sometimes a few things you were only thinking about.”

  I open my mouth to argue, only to realize…I can’t really think of a time when he didn’t actually honor a request. Even the ones I never formally made. Like not self-medicating and spending more time with the baby.

  “Thank you,” I say, realizing as I say the two words how grateful I am for the work he’s put in and the way he’s apparently listened to me, even when he doesn’t acknowledge it.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” Stone says, shifting irritably in his seat. “You’re always looking out for everybody, even when that shit’s way above your pay grade. Least I can do is listen and follow through. Especially since we probably wouldn’t be together, if you weren’t trying to make sure even the people you weren’t related to could live their best lives. That’s one of the many reasons I’m one-hundred percent in love with you.”

  My cheeks warm. On one hand these words coming from Stone are a high compliment indeed. On the other, I’d like to edge away from the topic of his supposed love…and the felony-level cover up that led to our current marriage.

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve started sharing with Dr. Nouri,” I say to him. Then with a quick glance to her, I ask, “You were saying something about some thoughts Stone was having?”

  “I’ll let Stone start us off,” Dr. Nouri answers with a serene smile.

  Stone shifts irritably again, this time turning his huge body to face me. “Yeah, so I’ve been working real hard on this ‘being normal’ shit, like you told me to…”

  “Actually, I didn’t say…”

  Stone huffs at the doctor, “See I’m not going to be able to tell her. She likes arguing with me too much.”

  “I don’t like to…” I start to say.

  “See?” Stone says jutting a hand at me before I can finish that statement. “She’s too argumentative.”

  “I’m not argumentative! Most of the people I know would claim the exact opposite about me.”

  “I know, right?” Stone says with an annoyed shake of his head. “I thought once I put a ring on it, you’d calm down. Be that docile social worker Amber and Rock was always talking about. But the ring made it even worse.”

  I gape at him. Does he mean the ring he forced me to accept before agreeing to clean up Cami’s crime scene? But of course, I can’t say that aloud.

  And before I can come up with a non-legally actionable defense for myself, Dr. Nouri interjects with, “Perhaps try holding your thoughts until Stone is finished.”

  I clamp my lips, torn between my dutiful social worker baseline and my churlish need to defend myself against Stone’s outrageous accusations. In the end, the social worker wins out.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. “Please tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “So while I’ve been fulfilling your request for me to be normal…”

  He pauses, obviously waiting for me to prove him right and take the bait. But I keep my tongue locked away behind clenched teeth, making myself be the good listener with Stone than I am with most other people.

  “Dr. Nouri and my psychiatrist keep telling me I don’t got to worry about taking pills anymore. I grew up believing I was a psycho who didn’t know how to do nothing but fight and take out whatever Luca or his father pointed me at. But Dr. Nouri says maybe I was just an abused kid with some messed up scripts and you know, should maybe think about forgiving myself.”

  Oh, this confession is killing me! I want to say so bad that I agree about him forgiving himself, but instead I nod and take his hand, holding my tongue like I promised.

  “So that’s what I been doing. Working on my insides. Trying to wrap my head around Rock dying, especially after a I lost my shit the first time Garnet called me ‘dada’.”

  Oh, Stone… I think, but don’t say. Still, I’m struck by the amazing work he’s been doing. I can’t wait to tell him that as soon as he’s done with his revelation.

  “I’ve been doing that,” he said. “And it ain’t easy, but you know I’m making progress. And last week I was telling Dr. Nouri all about it, how I was opening up, getting vulnerable and all that shit, not just pushing it all down. I was telling her how I liked the man I was becoming in this relationship with you…”

  My heart is practically a melted puddle now, because I couldn’t agree more with all his findings. God, I can’t wait to encourage the heck out of this new mindset.

  “The only thing holding me back now is the fact that I think you might be batshit crazy, and I didn’t know how to tell you that. So Dr. Nouri was like, ‘I agree. Invite her in. We’ll session this shit out.’”

  I pause, my hands going limp on top of Stone’s fist. “Wait…what? You two brought me in here because you think there’s something wrong…with me?” I ask, looking between Stone and Dr. Nouri.

  “I would like to go on record as disagreeing with much of Stone’s terminology, especially the words ‘batshit crazy,’” Dr. Nouri says carefully. “And as I’ve told Stone many times I don’t necessarily adhere to the notion of right and wrong when it comes to mental health.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Psycho is a strong word. We’re all just trying to fig
ure this emotion shit out,” Stone says. “But the point is, you’ve got some head shit of your own to figure out.

  This time I lift both hands from Stone’s fist. “Okay, what?”

  A grimace passes over Dr. Nouri’s previously serene face. “This is why I advised Stone to have this conversation with both of us and not attempt it on his own. Here is what I think Stone might be trying to say. In the beginning, when your marriage was one of convenience, he knew that you wanted him to leave. It felt like a fact of your relationship.”

  “Because it was,” I answer. “It’s not unreasonable to not want to enter into a marriage of convenience—which by the way I didn’t really get a say in.”

  “Yes, we’ve discussed why his actions most likely made you feel controlled…but has this marriage inconvenienced you in any other way? Kept you from something or someone else?”

  “Is this about Amber?” I ask Stone. “I thought we dealt with that. I’m not—”

  “No, it ain’t about Amber,” he answers, cutting me off. “Almost wish it was, then this shit you’ve got going on wouldn’t feel so complicated.”

  “I’m not even sure what you’re referring to, what you think I’ve done wrong here,” I answer.

  Stone huffs, then looks over to Dr. Nouri, “I’m going to let you explain it, because I don’t think either of you are going to like ‘my language’ if you let me do the job.”

  Dr. Nouri must agree with him. “I think Stone has a fear that he needs to address with you,” she says, once again serving as his emotion translator. “He feels that the issues in your relationship no longer stem from you wanting him to leave, but instead, expecting him to leave.”

  I crook my head, because, “I don’t…I don’t understand what you’re trying to say?”

  “Stone desires to transform your marriage into a loving relationship. Do you have that same desire?”

  Here’s that question again. What do you want, Naima? What do you want?

  My heart speeds up, and suddenly I can’t answer. I can’t even breathe. It feels like I’m on the verge of a panic attack.”

  “Okay, how about this?” Stone asks when I don’t answer. “If I said tomorrow you could have a divorce, no harm, no foul, would you take me up on that?”

  My heart skids to a stop, a terrible ache taking bloom. “So you want a divorce?” I ask.

  “No, I don’t want a fucking divorce. I’m Catholic Italian Mob. You got better chances of breaking out of Guantanamo Bay, than getting me to agree to that shit. But say, I had a stroke or something, and was like, ‘yeah, be free, little bird’.”

  “Then I’d be suspicious, because that doesn’t really sound like you.” I shake my head, irrationally irritable at the question I can’t answer. “Why do you even care what I want anyway? It’s never mattered to you before.”

  “Because I’m in love with you!” Stone roars. “And that’s what falling in love with somebody does to a man. Makes him fucking care.”

  “Stone,” Dr. Nouri says, her voice a soft warning.

  Stone takes a deep breath through his nostrils and visibly calms himself down, but his voice sounds like it’s straining to stay level as he says, “Right now you’re sending some real mixed signals. Riding my dick all night, then waking up the next morning and telling me to stick it in some other snatch, instead of saying ‘I love you, too,’ like a normal wife.”

  The word normal hits me hard. No, I’m not normal. That’s why Rock dumped me, and why Stone eventually will, too.”

  “I wasn’t trying to send you mixed signals,” I explain to him. “I was just saying you’d moved awfully fast from being able to have sex again to love.”

  “We been together for almost a year now. Been banging since December. You’re acting like it’s been two weeks. And you still haven’t answered one of my goddamned questions. It’s real simple? Do you want to be in this marriage? Yes or no?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Great, me fucking, too,” Stone says. ”So then, why are you trying to get me to leave you?”

  “I’m not trying to get you to leave me,” I insist, feeling helpless and attacked. “That’s just what people do, eventually. I’m only preparing you and my myself for what comes next.”

  Dr. Nouri leans forward. “Is that what you believe, Naima? That everybody leaves? That all relationships end with one person leaving the other.”

  “No, I don’t think all relationships end that way,” I answer, thinking of Luca and Amber, who will probably be together forever now that they’ve found each other again. Also, my parents whose long-term relationship is so secure, they’ve made a game out of cheating accusations.

  But… “That’s how my relationships end. All of them.” Something jagged and raw twists through me and a crushing heaviness presses against my heart. “My parents left two years ago—I mean they had their reasons. Good reasons, but I didn’t have any other family in New York, and they left me behind. Then my best friend Amber decided to make another go of it with her ex-husband instead of raising her baby with me like she’d promised. And then Rock dumped me…”

  I trail off.

  But Dr. Nouri picks up my lost thread. “That’s a lot of people unexpectedly leaving during a relatively short time period,” she observes, her tone thoughtful. “Maybe you felt lonely during that time. A little abandoned. Is that right?”

  “Yes, abandoned…I’d invested hardcore in those relationships and ended up with nothing,” I answer, my heart constricting. “They all left, with, like, no hesitation. That’s what hurt me the most. But you know, I’m not lonely now. I mean, I’ve got my baby.”

  “A person who’s incapable of walking away from you, at least for several years,” Dr. Nouri points out. “But how are you dealing with the people in your life who can walk away? People like your Aunt Mari, and the two girls you’ve invited to live with you.”

  “Fine…” I start to insist. But then I remember the conversation with Cami from this morning. How unnecessarily angry I’d felt when she announced that she gotten that dream job in Portland.

  Also, how many times had I refused to go to church or any other family event with Aunt Mari? Even though I’d technically moved down here to be closer to her and the rest of my dad’s side of the family? “I guess I can be a little withholding. I’m not trying to be.”

  “I think a lot of people who’d experienced loss on the level you have would be a little hesitant in what is still a relatively new relationship,” Dr. Nouri says sympathetically.

  I nod. It’s the right answer. The professional answer. Perfectly balanced to make me understand my reaction to Stone’s profession of love, without feeling ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I find myself whispering to Stone. “I’m sorry I’m like this. Sorry I can’t believe your ‘I love you’ and say it back. I know I’ve got issues. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could act like a normal wife.”

  “Fuck normal,” Stone answers, his face hitching into an ironic smile. “A normal wife never would’ve married me. Never would’ve done what you did for Cami and Talia. A normal wife sure as shit wouldn’t have stood up to me about the pills. You hold down the fort. You’re always there when I want to talk. Plus, you’re going to give me a son any day now. So believe me, if I’ve got to choose between you and normal, it’s you every day. I shouldn’t have to fight for a love you ain’t willing to give. But I’m doing it. And I’ll keep on doing it. I don’t care how fucked in the head that makes me. I’ll keep fighting for you as long as it takes.”

  Did I really think nothing had truly changed after Stone stopped taking those pills?

  Stone’s words melt my heart.

  But then his face scrunches, all the softness disappearing. “And by the way, you might as well get the thought of me leaving you out your head. I could fuck a thousand broads, and the only one I’d really want to be fucking is you.”

  He reaches for me, enveloping one of my hands in both of his and bringing them to his mouth. “L
ove me or don’t love me back, I’m staying put either way.”

  Okay, we just talked about my parents moving to another country, my best friend casually abandoning all the plans we’d made together, my ex-boyfriend dumping me right before he died.

  So why is this the moment that breaks me? When Stone kisses my hand, his eyes blazing, like he couldn’t be madder at me—or love me more—the flood gates burst open.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to him, tears streaming out of my eyes. Suddenly I’m so grateful that this rude boar of a man charged into my life and refused to leave. “Thank you for saying that. For being you.”

  And in the next moment I decide out loud and inside my heart, “I’m going to try to believe, to learn how to trust. For you and Garnet. I’m going to try, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Before Stone, relationships had always felt like something that happened to me. A boy at church passing me a folded offering envelope note with “I like you,” scrawled across the back in pencil. A co-worker I never even considered like that, asking me out to coffee. A man who looked identical to the man who’d just dragged me by gunpoint out of my home inviting me to dinner.

  Relationships have always been an opportunity dangled, grasped for, then snatched away.

  The session with Stone’s therapist reframes everything, though.

  Stone’s not passing me notes, or asking me out, or inviting me to dinner. He’s telling me straight up that he’s fallen in love with me. One hundred percent and now he wants me to totally fall in love with him, too.

  Will I? Can I?

  My mind grinds away at both of those questions over the weeks that follow. Wage a full out battle between ominous warnings from relationships past and old Naima, the woman who used to be capable of believing in love.

  “Our relationship anniversary’s coming up next month.”

  I pause in the middle of buttoning up my work slacks, which are getting a little tight, thanks to all the good Dominican food I’ve been shoveling. I almost say, “No, we got married in August,” but then I realize he’s counting from the first time he showed up at my door.