Graham has always been a silent fighter. The strength of his voice and the way it reverberates inside the car makes me freeze. “I need to tell you why I did what I did. When I’m finished, you can decide what to do, but please, Quinn. Let me speak first.”
I close my door and lean back in my seat. I squeeze my eyes shut and the tears continue to fall. I don’t want to listen to him. But part of me needs to know every detail because if I don’t get the facts, I’m scared my imagination will make it even worse. “Hurry,” I whisper. I don’t know how long I can sit here without completely losing it.
He inhales a calming breath. It takes him a moment to figure out where to start. Or how to start. “She was hired on by our firm a few months ago.”
I can hear the tears in his voice. He tries to keep it steady, but the regret is there. It’s the only thing that helps ease the pain—knowing he’s suffering, too.
“We interacted a few times, but I never looked at her as anything more than a coworker. I’ve never looked at any woman how I look at you, Quinn. I don’t want you to think that’s how it started.”
I can feel him looking at me, but I keep my eyes shut. My pulse is pounding so hard, I feel like the only thing that could make it stop is getting out of this claustrophobic car. But I know he won’t let me until I hear him out, so I focus on breathing steadily while he speaks.
“There were things she would do sometimes that would catch my attention. Not because I found her intriguing or attractive, but because . . . her mannerisms reminded me of you.”
I shake my head and open my mouth to speak. He can tell I’m about to interrupt, so he whispers, “Just let me finish.”
I close my mouth and lean forward, crossing my arms over the steering wheel. I press my forehead against my arms and pray he gets this over with.
“Nothing happened between us until last week. We were assigned to work on a job together Wednesday, so we spent a lot of the day together. I noticed as the hours passed that I was . . . drawn to her. Attracted to her. But not because she had something you didn’t. I was drawn to her because of how much she reminded me of you.”
I have so much I want to scream at him right now, but I hold back.
“Being around her all day Wednesday made me miss you. So I left work early, thinking maybe if I just took you out for a nice dinner or did something to make you happy, you would smile at me like you used to. Or you’d be interested in my day. Or me. But when I got home and walked through the front door, I saw you walking out of the living room. I know you heard me opening the door. But for some reason, instead of being excited to see me come home an hour early, you went to your office so you could avoid me.”
I’m not only full of anger now. I’m also full of shame. I didn’t think he noticed all the times I try to avoid him.
“You spoke one word to me Wednesday night. One. Do you remember what it was?”
I nod, but I keep my head buried against my arms. “Goodnight.”
I can hear the tears in his voice when he says, “I was so angry at you. Figuring you out is like a fucking riddle sometimes, Quinn. I was tired of trying to figure out how to be around you the right way. I was so mad at you, I didn’t even kiss you goodbye when I left for work Thursday.”
I noticed.
“When we finished up the project on Thursday, I should have come home. I should have left, but instead . . . I stayed. And we talked. And . . . I kissed her.” Graham runs his hands down his face. “I shouldn’t have done it. And even after it started, I should have stopped it. But I couldn’t. Because the whole time I had my eyes closed, I pretended it was you.”
I lift my head off my arms and look at him. “So it’s my fault? Is that what you’re saying?” I turn my whole body toward him in my seat. “You don’t get the attention you want from me, so you find someone who reminds you of me? I guess as long as you pretend it’s your wife, it shouldn’t count.” I roll my eyes and fall back against my seat. “Graham Wells, first man in the world to find an ethical way around an affair.”
“Quinn.”
I don’t let him speak. “You obviously didn’t feel very guilty if you had the entire fucking weekend to think about it, but then went back to work and did it all over again.”
“It was twice. Last Thursday and last night. That’s it. I swear.”
“What if I wouldn’t have caught on? Would you have even stopped it?”
Graham runs his hand over his mouth, squeezing his jaw. His head shakes a little and I’m hoping it’s not an answer to my question. I’m hoping he’s just shaking it in regret.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he says, looking out his window. “Nobody deserves this. Especially you. Before I left tonight, I swore to myself that it would never happen again. But I also never believed I would be capable of something like this to begin with.”
I look up at the roof of the car and press my palm to my chest, blowing out a quick breath. “Then why did you do it?” My question comes out in a sob.
Graham turns to me as soon as I start crying. He leans across the seat and grips my face, silently pleading for me to look at him. When I finally do meet his desperate stare, it makes me cry even harder. “We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.”
Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.”
Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him.
And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with.
But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into.
“Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband—a husband who truly loves his wife—wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.”
Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?”
“I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.”
Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single secon
d of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!”
He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!”
He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry.
He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!”
He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe.
Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.”
Chapter Twenty-one
* * *
Then
I never ask my mother for favors for obvious reasons. Which is precisely why I called my stepfather to ask permission to use his beach house in Cape Cod. He only uses it as a rental property now and it stays booked up in the summers. But it’s February and the house has been sitting empty for most of the winter. It took a lot to swallow my pride and ask him, but it was a lot easier than if I’d asked her. She has stated numerous times since she met Graham that she thinks I could do better. In her eyes, better means meeting someone with his own beach house so that I’ll never have to ask to borrow theirs for the weekend.
Graham walked around for an hour after we got here, pointing things out with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning.
Quinn, come look at this view!
Quinn, come look at this bathtub!
Quinn, did you see the fire pit?
Quinn, they have kayaks!
His excitement has waned a little since we got here earlier today. We just ate dinner and I took a shower while Graham built a fire in the fire pit. It’s an unusually warm day for a February in Massachusetts, but even on a warmer winter day, it barely tops out in the fifties during the day and the thirties at night. I bring a blanket to the fire pit with me and curl up next to Graham on the patio sofa.
He pulls me even closer, wrapping an arm around me while I rest my head on his shoulder. He tucks the blanket around both of us. It’s cold, but the warmth from both him and the fire make it bearable. Comfortable, even.
I’ve never seen Graham more at peace than when he’s out here, listening to the sounds of the ocean. I love how he looks out over the water as if it holds all the answers to every question in the world. He looks at the ocean with the respect it deserves.
“What a perfect day,” he says quietly.
I smile. I like that a perfect day to him includes me. It’s been six months since we started dating. Sometimes I look at him and feel such an overwhelming appreciation for him, I almost want to write thank-you notes to our exes. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
It’s funny how you can be so happy with someone and love them so much, it creates an underlying sense of fear in you that you never knew before them. The fear of losing them. The fear of them getting hurt. I imagine that’s what it’s like when you have children. It’s probably the most incredible kind of love you’ll ever know, but it’s also the most terrifying.
“Do you want kids?” I practically blurt the question out. It was so quiet between us and then I sliced through that quiet with a question whose answer could determine our future. I don’t know how to do anything with subtlety.
“Of course. Do you?”
“Yeah. I want a lot of kids.”
Graham laughs. “How many is a lot?”
“I don’t know. More than one. Less than five.” I lift my head off his shoulder and look at him. “I think I would make a great mom. I don’t brag on myself, but if I had kids, I’m pretty sure they would be the best kids ever.”
“I have no doubt.”
I lay my head back on his shoulder. He covers my hand that’s pressed against his chest. “Have you always wanted to be a mom?”
“Yes. It’s kind of embarrassing how excited I am to be a mother. Most girls grow up dreaming of a successful career. I was always too embarrassed to admit that I wanted to work from home and have a bunch of babies.”
“That’s not embarrassing.”
“Yes it is. Women nowadays are supposed to want to amount to more than just being a mother. Feminism and all that.”
Graham scoots me off his chest to tend to the fire. He grabs two small logs and walks them over to the fire pit, then reclaims his seat next to me. “Be whatever you want to be. Be a soldier if you want. Or a lawyer. Or a CEO. Or a housewife. The only thing you shouldn’t be is embarrassed.”
I love him. I love him so much.
“A mom isn’t the only thing I want to be. I want to write a book someday.”
“Well you certainly have the imagination for it based on all the crazy dreams you have.”
“I should probably write them down,” I laugh.
Graham is smiling at me with an unfamiliar look on his face. I’m about to ask him what he’s thinking, but he speaks first.
“Ask me again if I want kids,” he says.
“Why? Are you changing your answer?”
“I am. Ask me again.”
“Do you want kids?”
He smiles at me. “I only want kids if I can have them with you. I want to have lots of kids with you. I want to watch your belly grow and I want to watch you hold our baby for the first time and I want to watch you cry because you’re so deliriously happy. And at night I want to stand outside the nursery and watch you rock our babies to sleep while you sing to them. I can’t think of anything I want more than to make you a mother.”
I kiss his shoulder. “You always say the sweetest things. I wish I knew how to express myself like you do.”
“You’re a writer. You’re the one who’s good with words.”
“I’m not arguing about my writing skills. I could probably write down what I feel for you, but I could never put it into words verbally like you do.”
“Then do that,” he says. “Write me a love letter. No one’s ever written me a love letter before.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m serious. I’ve always wanted one.”
I laugh. “I’ll write you a love letter, you sappy man.”
“It better be more than a page long. And I want you to tell me everything. What you thought of me the first time you saw me. What you felt when we were falling in love. And I want you to spray your perfume on it like the girls in high school do.”
“Any other requests?”
“I wouldn’t be opposed to you slipping a nude pic in the envelope.”
I can probably make that happen.
Graham tugs me onto his lap so that I’m straddling him. He pulls the blanket over us, cocooning us inside of it. He’s wearing a pair of cotton pajama pants, so I get a clear sense of what he’s thinking right now. “Have you ever made love outdoors in thirty-degree weather before?”
I grin against his mouth. “Nope. But funny enough, that’s precisely why I’m not wearing any underwear right now.”
Graham’s hands fall to my ass and he groans as he lifts my nightgown. I rise a little so that he can free himself, and then I lower myself on top of him, taking him in. We make love, cocooned under a blanket with the sound of the ocean as our background song. It’s the perfect moment in a perfect place with the perfect person. And I know without a doubt that I’ll be writing about this moment when I write my love letter to him.
Chapter Twenty-two
* * *
Now
He kissed another woman.
I stare at the
text I’m about to send Ava, but then I remember she’s several hours ahead where she lives. I would feel bad, knowing this is the text she’ll wake up to. I delete it.
It’s been half an hour since Graham gave up and went back inside, but I’m still sitting in my car. I think I’m too wounded to move. I have no idea if any of this is my fault or if it’s his fault or if it’s no one’s fault. The only thing I know is that he hurt me. And he hurt me because I’ve been hurting him. It doesn’t make what he did right in any sense, but a person can understand a behavior without excusing it.
Now we’re both full of so much pain, I don’t even know where to go from here. No matter how much you love someone—the capacity of that love is meaningless if it outweighs your capacity to forgive.
Part of me wonders if we’d even be having any of these problems if we would have been able to have a baby. I’m not sure that our marriage would have taken the turn it did because I would have never been as devastated as I’ve been the last few years. And Graham wouldn’t have had to walk on eggshells around me.
But then part of me wonders if this was inevitable. Maybe a child wouldn’t have changed our marriage and instead of just being an unhappy couple, we would have been an unhappy family. And then what would that make us? Just another married couple staying together for the sake of the children.
I wonder how many marriages would have survived if it weren’t for the children they created together. How many couples would have continued to live together happily without the children being the glue that holds their family together?
Maybe we should get a dog. See if that fixes us.
Maybe that’s exactly what Graham was thinking when he sat in my car earlier and said, “Why did we never get a dog?”
Of course, that’s what he was thinking. He’s just as aware of our problems as I am. It only makes sense our minds would head in the same direction.
When it grows too cold in the car, I walk back into our house and sit on the edge of the sofa. I don’t want to go to my bedroom where Graham is sleeping. A while ago he was screaming that he loves me at the top of his lungs. He was so loud, I’m sure all the neighbors woke up to the sound of him yelling and the pounding of his fist against metal.
All Your Perfects Page 15
