Being Known

by Robin Jones Gunn

  But I couldn’t pull up any of the rage I had felt earlier. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was shut down.

  Joel’s expression sobered when he saw that I was withdrawing and staring at him like I was trying to remember my own name.

  He reached out and took my hand in his. “I’m sorry I laughed. I’m sure it was painful for you. You trusted the guy when you were young, and he betrayed your trust. You tried to figure out how to relate to him as an adult, and you didn’t have anyone walking through that with you. I can see how hurtful and painful that could be.”

  I drew in a deep breath and reached over for Joel’s glass, downing the last drops. It tasted like pineapple juice with a spritz of ginger ale. The bright burst gave me enough clarity to look at him.

  “Thank you for telling me everything, Jennalyn,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make light of anything you told me.”

  “I wish I had told you sooner, Joel. I should have. I shut down and didn’t include you in that part of my life. I feel like I left you. Not physically, but emotionally. Part of me divorced myself from you.” I hadn’t fully formed that thought until this moment. I was surprised at how raw and vulnerable I could be with him now that everything was out in the open.

  “Joel, will you please forgive me?”

  He paused before meeting my gaze. “Yes, I forgive you.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. We were used to apologizing. Asking for forgiveness felt different. Deeper and more freeing.

  “Listen,” Joel said. “I don’t know what it’s like to lose my mother, obviously. I don’t have any of the shared feelings or the ability to empathize the way he did. Whenever you can help me to understand what you’re going through, I appreciate it.”

  I nodded.

  “What I do understand is the pull, the luring away from what is, and the temptation mentally and physically to pursue someone else. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s intense for men. You know that.”

  “It can be intense for women too.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times a day I remind myself that I chose you, Jennalyn. I chose our family, I chose our life together. Anytime you’re struggling that way, I want you to tell me.”

  Even though I felt released after sharing so openly with Joel, and even though I sensed a freedom because of his forgiveness, part of me felt that he needed to understand more fully the struggles I had gone through.

  “Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what to say to you. I mean, I could sit here right now and admit that I’m struggling with grief over my mother, or that I’m having a hard time with my hormones and emotions. I could tell you that I’m lonely.” I pulled my hand away from his and sat up straight. “The truth is, I’m not sure it would help. I don’t know that it would make a difference to say any of those things to you because it hasn’t made a difference between us for a long time.”

  Joel’s expression remained solemn. “I know. But would you be willing to try? Because when you do let me in, it gives me a chance to at least try to understand.”

  I didn’t answer right away.

  A sadness seemed to come over him. “I’m sure you’re thinking that you can’t tell me things like this because I’m gone all the time.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking.” My wearied thoughts were a swirl, and I wasn’t clear on anything other than that I didn’t want us to go back to the way things had been.

  “It’s still something we need to address. I know I become defensive when you say that I’m never home. It’s true, though. I haven’t been here. I think part of me divorced you, too, when work became the most important thing in my life. My priorities have been twisted.” Joel rubbed the back of his neck. “I can see how I made a lot of choices that put our family out of balance. I’m sorry, Jennalyn.”

  He reached for my hand again. “Will you forgive me?”

  “Yes, I forgive you.”

  “I should have called you back last night. Please forgive me for not making myself available to you. Not just last night, but for the past year or more. I haven’t been there for you. Not even when Alex was born.”

  “It means so much to me that you just said that, Joel. I forgive you. I know you’ve been trying. When Alex was born, none of us knew he was going to come when he did. Please don’t think you should apologize for that.”

  “Okay, maybe not for missing Alex’s birth. But I could have done other things differently over the last few years. A lot of things. I haven’t been a team player. I haven’t loved you the way I should. I want that to change.”

  “So do I.”

  The cleansing tears came effortlessly for both of us. I couldn’t remember the last time we had both been so vulnerable and honest. We knew how to be uncovered and open with each other physically. Learning how to do that emotionally and mentally was new.

  “Come here.” Joel stood and opened his arms to me. I rose and rested my head on his shoulder. We wrapped our arms around each other, clinging tightly and whispering to each other all the deeper feelings our hearts were telling us to say.

  I felt as if Joel and I had found our way back into each other’s confidence and trust, into the deeper essence of who we both were at heart. A lot of truth was spoken between us that night, and I felt so free.

  I also felt depleted. Beyond exhausted.

  “Why don’t you go to bed?” Joel said. “I’ll bring up some toast for you. Do you want tea? Water?”

  “Just water. A piece of toast would be nice.”

  “Slightly crunchy around the edges with honey melting into all the little holes?”

  I looked into my husband’s face. He remembered. “Yes, please. That’s how I like my toast.”

  “I know.” He grinned and added, “I’ll be up in a minute, and then I’ll pick up the kids. Are they at my parents?”

  “No. I took them over to Christy’s. I didn’t think you would want your parents to know we were having an argument.”

  Joel kissed me. “Thank you. I love my family, but they don’t need to know everything about our lives.”

  “I agree.”

  Our bed felt so good. I drank most of the water and had three bites of the toast before turning off the light and falling into a deep sleep. Sometime later I heard Joel coming to bed. I didn’t ask about the kids, or what time it was. I kept my eyes closed and went back to sleep, only slightly aware of Joel’s steady hand resting on my shoulder.

  The world I awoke to on Tuesday morning was a different world than the one I had pushed through since Sunday night when I had left Poppy’s birthday party. I felt unencumbered.

  I set up my paints and nice paper on the kitchen counter and was working on the invitations for the Spring Fling beach picnic when Joel came into the kitchen with Alex in his arms. The two of them were playing a game in which Alex planted a slobbery kiss on Joel’s face and then pulled back and laughed. Our happy boy did it over and over until Joel was belly-laughing too.

  Catching his breath, Joel tried to pull away from the kissing bug. “Where does he come up with this stuff?”

  I grinned. This was the life I had dreamed of.

  Leaning over my shoulder, Joel glanced at the words I was lettering on the invitations.

  “What are you going to take as your food item?” Joel asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Do you have any ideas?” Before Joel could answer, I remembered some of the sillier suggestions I had made when we first started to plan our gathering. I scrolled through a long group text. “I volunteered quail eggs with figs and cream.”

  Joel gave me an odd look.

  “It was a joke. We were trying to come up with a theme. I think we were leaning toward all things Downton Abbey at that point.”

  “Figs and cream,” Joel repeated. He put
down Alex and pulled out one of his old cookbooks.

  “It was only a joke,” I said.

  He shot me a playfully dramatic look. “Don’t ever joke with me about food.”

  I grinned and finished adding the watercolor embellishment to the last invitation.

  “Here we go.” He smoothed down the page. “Figs and cream. Okay, hmmm. Mascarpone. Interesting. Oh, yeah. This looks good.”

  “Have you ever had figs and cream?”

  “No, let’s make it tonight. You and me.”

  I couldn’t believe he was inviting me to cook with him. An invitation to share kitchen space with my husband was like being invited into Fort Knox to see where all the money was kept.

  “We’ll need some ingredients,” Joel said. “Would you like me to take the kids with me to the grocery store to buy what we need?”

  “Okay. Yes, sure. If you can wait a few minutes, these invitations will be dry. Would you mind mailing them for me? They have to go out this morning.”

  “I would be glad to.”

  When I helped Joel load the kids into the car, I couldn’t believe how excited they were to go somewhere with Daddy. It reminded me of when Todd had taken Hana and Cole out for ice cream before dinner. At the time I thought I never would want Joel to do that with our kids. Now I loved that he was adding his own version of “pop-up events” to our family and giving our children great memories of their childhood, including their dad being around and involved and fun.

  I used the free time to take a true shower. I shaved my legs, let the conditioner stay on my hair for two minutes, and even used a loofah on my rough heels. I looked at my naked toenails and said aloud, “It’s time.”

  I wanted to start the mom and daughter pedicure tradition with Christy and Hana. I wanted fresher springtime beginnings.

  Once I was out of the shower, I texted Christy and suggested we schedule our mother-daughter pedis. I opened the DOEs group text and told them the invitations for the Spring Fling were being mailed that morning.

  Then I added the question none of the others had asked yet, which surprised me. I asked Tess how things had gone with Rick. Her reply came back while I was drying my hair.

  I will tell all on Saturday.

  I frowned and wanted to ask for more info. What would our favorite woman of options tell us on Saturday that she couldn’t tell us now? I was nervous. It didn’t make sense to me why she had decided to meet with him in the first place. Unless she intended to keep the relationship going. I thought about how I felt no need to have further communication with Garrett. Not that it was the same thing, but I felt that both Tess and I needed to protect our impressionable hearts.

  As I dressed, I thought about how disconnected I was from Garrett. The game app had been deleted the same night I had shown it to Joel. If Garrett tried to message me through any other social media, he would be blocked. I put him into what Joel called the no-fly zone so that it would be clear to him that I had closed the door into my life.

  The powerful part was that thinking of him didn’t bring any feelings to the surface. Not good feelings, not bad—nothing. All the emotions had been unplugged. Diffused. He was no longer in my head and most certainly not in my heart. Memories like the prom had settled into a coming-of-age image in my mind that carried no complicated messages. I saw the past as then and my life in the present as now. My choice each day was to live in the now.

  As for the dark cave where memories of Garrett and my mom had mingled in the deepest corner of my soul, that space had been filled with light. Haunting spirits can’t float about in the light. Everything I remembered about Mom was now in the open air, alive and well in my thoughts. Nothing remained in the darkness.

  I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and smiled softly. She was very much alive. One day, I would see her again.

  “I love you, Mom. I always have, and I always will.” My voice was a whisper. A steady, confident whisper.

  Chapter 24

  I noticed a sense of calm during dinner and bath time that night. Our kids were different when their dad was home and connecting with them. They were happier, and so was I. I tried to describe the difference to Joel after the kids were in bed. He had his beloved fifty-year-old cookbook open and all the ingredients for figs and cream lined up on the counter.

  Instead of diving into the prep work, Joel stood with both palms resting on the counter. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about work,” he said. “Would you mind if I talked through a couple of things with you?”

  “I would love it.”

  “I’m thinking about stepping into the manager position full time and putting Vincent on as head chef.”

  “That’s a big decision,” I said.

  “I know.”

  Joel glanced at me. “What do you think?”

  My heart did a little flutter. It had been so long since Joel had asked my opinion on anything related to his business. When we were only dreaming of a future restaurant for him, he asked my opinion on everything. Then the kids came, and he immersed himself in the world he was creating at the Blue Ginger. At that point our lives became more and more separated.

  “I think you love to cook, and you will cook and bake and come up with delicious recipes for the rest of your life. It’s in you, and it’s not going to go away.”

  “What about the managing part?”

  “You’re good at that too. The question is, Do you love it? Do you love being a part owner and having the final say on things like the new stove and who you hire?”

  “I do.”

  “Which do you love the most?”

  Joel thought a moment. “If I was twenty-five, I would say I love being a chef more than anything. However, I’m going to be forty next year.”

  “I know.” I grinned. “I’m going to be married to an old man.”

  Joel ignored my attempt at teasing him and stayed on topic. “I’ve learned a lot about the business side this past year. I would like to learn more. I like managing. I like being the boss.” Joel grinned. “So, what do you think?”

  “I’m one hundred percent in favor of you pursuing what you love to do. I’m also one thousand percent in favor of you having a life that encompasses us, your family. We want you, Joel. We want you to lead us.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to make the change.” Joel described how he was going to write his own job description. He already had talked with his assistant manager, and the two of them were coming up with a business plan and restructuring model.

  “I would make a couple of other staff changes in the kitchen. I might even change the name of the restaurant and adjust the menu. I wouldn’t do it all at once.”

  “When would all this start?”

  He lifted his hands to me, palms open, as if inviting a response. “It will start whenever my life partner tells me she thinks it’s the way to go.”

  I hadn’t expected that. I answered him with the first thought that came to mind. “Maybe we should pray about it. Together. I mean, I think it’s a good idea. But we should pray about stuff like this, right?”

  “You’re right. Absolutely right. Come here.”

  I went to the other side of the counter and put my hand in his. Joel prayed with more confidence than I think I had ever heard from him. When he ended with “Amen,” he gave my hand a squeeze. “Promise me you’ll keep giving input if you have any insights into all this.”

  “Okay.” I looked closely at my husband. “Joel, don’t take this the wrong way, but what happened to you? Why are you being so attentive?”

  He slapped his open palm to his chest as if I had wounded him. “Oh, that hurt!” The smile hidden in the corner of his eyes let me know that he was teasing. I still felt a little timid after the highs and lows of the last few days.

  “All I meant was that you’ve changed.”

 
“I knew what you meant.” Joel pulled the hand mixer out of the cupboard and popped in the two blades. “So here’s the truth. Please, don’t take this the wrong way.”

  I waited, not sure how this was going to go.

  “When I left the restaurant Sunday night, I wanted to leave. Go far away. I imagined the worst. I had been feeling so much pressure for so long, I thought the only way to be free would be to go. To be done with you, the kids, everything. I just wanted to get away.”

  I watched his profile as he spoke and felt sick to my stomach. Joel never said things like that. He rarely told me what he was feeling. What he said was raw and honest, but for a moment, his truth frightened me.

  Joel put the ingredients into a mixing bowl. I knew he wasn’t angry. He bakes when he’s happy, not when he’s mad. He even said once that if you cook out of anger you can taste it in the food. I knew that he loved to create out of his own contentment, the way I paint and sketch out of a place of my own personal bliss. When I was at peace, the art flowed from me.

  “Are you okay with me saying this?” Joel asked. “I don’t want to bum you out.”

  “You’re not. I understand the feelings. Go ahead.”

  “When I left the restaurant, I drove around and found a drive-through coffee place. I was sitting in line, waiting to order, and I saw the love note you left on the seat. When I read it, I realized how off my thinking was, and how it has been off for a long time.”

  “What love note?” I asked softly.

  “The one you drew with the word love and the verse.”

  I realized that I had taken his car to the movies with the DOEs and that my word-for-the-year card must have fallen out of my purse on the passenger’s seat.

  Joel recited the words I had penned from 1 Corinthians 13, looking like he had worked hard to memorize it. “ ‘Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.’ ”