Not Quickly Broken

by Cronk, LN

  I’d been there for about an hour when Charlotte finally came down the hall. She faltered for a moment when she saw me, but then continued to where I was.

  She stopped when she got to me.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “This isn’t my room,” she said, gesturing to the door.

  “It’s not?”

  “Uh-uh,” she said, pointing to the next door down. “It’s that one.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, then it’s a good thing you came along.”

  I stood up.

  She walked toward her door and I followed.

  “Go away, Jordan,” she said.

  “I just want to talk to you for a minute,” I said as she swiped her card through the lock. To my surprise she held the door open and let me in.

  “Talk,” she said, throwing her purse on the now meticulously made bed and crossing her arms as she turned toward me.

  “Let’s sit down,” I suggested, motioning toward the couch.

  “No. Talk.”

  I went ahead and sat down on the couch.

  “So I started to call Dr. Oransky this morning, but then . . . you know what?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I decided I don’t need him to fix things for me,” I said.

  She looked bored.

  “I mean,” I went on, “he’s spent the last three months showing me exactly what goes on in that head of yours. I decided I can figure this out on my own.”

  “Oh really?” she asked with a humorless laugh. “This outta be good.”

  She sat down on the bed and stared at me, arms still crossed.

  “So,” I began, “he told me not to sleep with you. He knew that was going to be a mistake.”

  She didn’t let her face give anything away.

  “But what really threw you over the edge,” I said, pointing a finger at her, “was when I told you that you were beautiful. That’s when you really got mad at me.”

  Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptively.

  “And so this morning,” I said, “I realized why.”

  She sighed.

  “You think that’s all you’re good for,” I said. “You think that’s all I want.”

  She looked away and thrust her chin in the air, trying unsuccessfully to look like she was still bored.

  “You even said it yourself last night,” I continued. “You said, ‘You got what you wanted’.”

  I paused for a moment.

  “But that’s not what I wanted,” I said.

  “Oh really?” she asked, looking back at me with anger flashing in her eyes. “Well that’s sure not how you were acting last night!”

  “I’m not saying I didn’t want to make love to you . . . but I’m saying that there are other things that I want more . . . a lot more. And I never should have let last night happen before you knew that.”

  She gave me one last heavy sigh and found that bored look again. “Would you go now, please?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I want you to know what I wanted most last night.”

  “Maybe I don’t care what you wanted, Jordan,” she said. “Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t care what you want?”

  “I wanted to hold you,” I said, ignoring her. “I wanted to sleep with you in my arms all night.”

  She shook her head and looked away again.

  “I miss you, Charlotte.”

  “Would you please go now?” she asked again.

  I stood up, reached into my pocket, and then walked over to the bed.

  “Charlotte?”

  She looked at me and I sat down next to her.

  “Would you please take these back?” I asked, holding her wedding rings out to her.

  “What?” she cried, looking at them. “No! Are you crazy?”

  I reached for her but she pulled away from me and stood up.

  “I want you out of here, Jordan,” she said, walking over to the couch that I’d been sitting on. She stood next to it with her back to me and looked out the window. Her arms were crossed again.

  “I know that you want to work things out with me,” I told her, standing up, but not moving toward her.

  She shook her head and turned to look at me in disbelief.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “I know that you want to get back together with me just as much as I want to get back together with you.”

  “Oh, really?” she asked with a derisive laugh. “And what makes you think that?”

  “Because I know you, Charlotte,” I said. “You’re the most stubborn, headstrong person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

  She looked at me.

  “And you don’t ever do anything unless it’s something that you want to do,” I told her.

  “So?”

  “So,” I said. “You’re still going to counseling with me.”

  I held her gaze before I finished, “But Thanksgiving was two weeks ago.”

  That did it.

  She sank down onto the couch and buried her face into her hands, sobbing. I walked over and sat down next to her, wrapping my arms around her. It took a minute, but finally she allowed herself to lean against me while she cried. I had a feeling that was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  We sat there like that for a long time and when she’d finally calmed down, she sat back and looked at me with red eyes.

  “Will you please wear these?” I asked again, holding the rings in front of her again. “It doesn’t mean everything’s okay – it just means that we’re trying . . .”

  This time she gave me a little nod and took them from me. She put them on her finger.

  “Wait . . .” I said.

  “What?” she asked quietly, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  “You put them on the wrong hand.”

  “I know,” she said.

  I looked at her questioningly.

  “That’s all I can give you right now.”

  “Fair enough,” I nodded. “I’ll take what I can get.”

  ~ ~ ~

  AFTER HE OPENED my next individual session with prayer, Dr. Oransky sat back and tapped his pencil a few times. Then he looked at me expectantly, raising an eyebrow.

  “Sorry?” I tried.

  “For?”

  “Everything?”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “Sounds like you managed to salvage things,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “You know she’s almost there, don’t you?” he said.

  I nodded again and couldn’t help but smile at him.

  “And you love her again,” he asked, “don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I WENT TO sleep before ten o’clock on December thirty-first. I had absolutely no desire to ring in the New Year. I just wanted to wake up in the morning and find that the old one was finally gone.

  Two hours later I was in a deep, dreamless sleep, but I woke up immediately at the sound of Charlotte’s voice.

  “Jordan?” she said quietly.

  “Charlotte?” My eyes flew open and I tried to focus. She was kneeling on the floor beside me, her face just inches from mine.

  “I’m home,” she whispered.

  I shook my head slightly and looked at the clock. It was almost midnight.

  “Am I dreaming?” I asked, looking back at her.

  “No,” she said with a smile, shaking her head.

  “You’re really home?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t want to start the New Year without you,” she said. Then she held up her left hand and showed me that her wedding rings were back where they belonged.

  I took in a deep, jagged breath and reached out for her, pulling her to me. I held on tight and buried my face against her neck.

  She clutched me back for a moment, but then in a strangled voice said, “Jordan?”

&nb
sp; “What?” I managed to ask.

  “I can’t breathe.”

  I loosened my grip and she sat back again, smiling at me.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. When I opened them again I told her, “I’m just glad you’re home.”

  “Me too,” she nodded, laying a hand on the side of my face. Slowly she leaned forward and kissed me gently, running her thumb across my cheek.

  Finally she pulled away and looked at me.

  “I love you so much, Charlotte,” I whispered.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered back. She was still smiling . . . still stroking my cheek.

  I returned her smile and she eyed my pillow and then my blanket.

  “Why are you sleeping on the couch?” she asked.

  “I can’t sleep in there when you’re not in there with me,” I explained, nodding my head toward our bedroom.

  A look of surprise came over her face. “You’ve been sleeping out here all these months?”

  I nodded at her and her look changed to one of sympathy.

  “Well, I’m here now,” she finally said, taking my hand. “Come on in there with me.”

  ~ ~ ~

  WE KEPT MEETING with Dr. Oransky, but not quite as often – individually one week, together the next.

  “How’s everything?” he asked at one of my individual sessions with him in late February.

  “Okay,” I shrugged.

  He looked at me questioningly.

  “It bothers me,” I said slowly, “that she goes off every morning and spends all day with Elias.”

  He looked at me sympathetically.

  “I thought it would get better . . . that it would stop bothering me,” I explained. “But it hasn’t. If anything, it’s getting worse.”

  “Do you think there’s something going on between them?”

  “I . . . I don’t think so . . .”

  “Do you trust her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, shaking my head. “I think if she’d just tell me what was going on between the two of them before all this happened then I would, but she won’t. Just the fact that she’s keeping something from me makes me feel like I can’t trust her.”

  “You’re keeping something from her,” he reminded me.

  “That’s different,” I protested.

  “How?” he challenged.

  “Well for one thing,” I said, “I know she’s keeping something from me! She doesn’t know that I’m keeping something from her.”

  “Maybe she senses that you’re still not telling her everything,” Dr. Oransky suggested.

  “And that’s why she’s not telling me about what happened with Elias?” I asked skeptically.

  “Maybe,” he shrugged.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.

  “You need to tell her,” he persisted. “Your marriage is never going to be completely healed until you tell her.”

  “And she’s got to tell me what happened between her and Elias!” I cried. “It’s not going to be completely healed until she tells me that either!”

  “You have to take responsibility for your own actions,” he reminded me. “You don’t have any control over what Charlotte does.”

  “I know,” I sighed.

  “You need to tell her.”

  He looked at me expectantly.

  “I’m going to . . .” I finally nodded.

  “When?”

  “Over spring break. We’re going to go away for a week and I’m going to tell her then.”

  “Good,” he nodded approvingly.

  “But you’ve got to tell her that she needs to tell me what happened between her and Elias–” I started to protest once more.

  “She wants to tell you,” he interrupted.

  “She does?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “And I think she will . . .”

  “When?”

  “When she’s completely gotten over what happened between you and Rhiannon.”

  “She’s not over it yet?”

  He shook his head at me.

  “But I . . . I thought she was,” I stammered. “She seems . . . she seems really happy.”

  He shook his head again.

  “She’s not happy?” I asked quietly.

  “She’s happy,” he said, “but she’s having a hard time allowing herself to fully trust you again.”

  “Is she ever going to be able to?”

  “I think so,” he nodded.

  “But what if she doesn’t?” I worried.

  “Then you’re not ever going to find out about her and Elias.”

  ~ ~ ~

  OVER SPRING BREAK we went back to the bed and breakfast where we’d decided to get married. I had made reservations in early January, but once we got there it was obvious that that had been unnecessary . . . we were the only ones staying there. The weather forecast called for a strong chance of showers every day and the temperatures threatened to make it almost cold enough to snow. Just almost though. In short, it promised to be a miserable, cold, and wet week.

  “We should have gone back to Tahiti,” I told Charlotte, looking out the window at the drizzle after we’d unpacked our suitcases. I looked back at her. “We’re not even going to be able to go outside.”

  “I don’t mind staying in with you,” she said, and she smiled.

  The next day I was surprised to see that it wasn’t raining - it wasn’t sunny and warm out by any means, but at least it wasn’t raining . . . yet. After breakfast I suggested to her that we walk down to the pond. Even though we had five days left ahead of us, I knew I needed to go ahead and tell her. Somehow I had the feeling it was going to take a while for us to work through it after I did.

  We sat down on the dock with our feet hanging over the edge, swinging them barely above the surface of the water. I prayed before I started talking to her . . . I wanted to make sure that God really wanted me to go through with this.

  He did.

  I looked at Charlotte and brushed a piece of hair off of her cheek, tucking it behind her ear with my finger.

  “I love you,” I told her.

  “I love you, too,” she said. She smiled at me.

  I didn’t say anything for a while, but I kept running my finger over her cheek.

  “I want you to be able to trust me,” I told her.

  “I do,” she said quietly.

  “No, you don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Not completely.”

  She didn’t answer me and I hesitated for a moment before going on.

  “I need to tell you something,” I finally said.

  I felt her body stiffen.

  “What?” she asked.

  I looked at her and cupped her chin in my hand.

  “I love you,” I said again, feeling tears welling up in my eyes.

  “She’s pregnant!” Charlotte said, pulling away from me.

  “What?”

  “Rhiannon’s pregnant, isn’t she?” she cried. “That’s what you’re going to tell me!”

  “What? No!” I said, looking at her in surprise. “Charlotte! I didn’t sleep with her . . . I told you I didn’t sleep with her.”

  Charlotte didn’t move.

  “Please believe me,” I said. “I kissed her that one time and that was it.”

  I saw her body relax slightly.

  “She’s not pregnant?” Charlotte asked quietly.

  “Not that I know of, but even if she is, it isn’t mine,” I assured her. “We didn’t do anything.”

  She looked at me and I think she believed me.

  “Plus,” I said with a bit of a smile, “I had a vasectomy, remember?”

  She didn’t smile back.

  “Come here,” I said, pulling her toward me again. She moved closer and let me wrap an arm around her. I kissed the top of her head and held her for a minute.

  “What do you have to tell me then?” she asked.

  “This is it,” I said. “No more secrets between us after
this. Okay?”

  “What?” she asked again, not trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Remember last Christmas,” I finally began, “when we saw David and Laci?”

  She looked at me and nodded, obviously confused.

  “That’s kind of when it all started . . . I watched you holding Grace that night and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s what I want. I want us to have a baby.”

  She looked at me sympathetically. “We will,” she said. “We can adopt just like they did . . .”

  “I wanted us to have our own baby,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought that if I found out I didn’t have Huntington’s, then we could try . . .”

  “Then why on earth did you get a vasectomy?” she cried, throwing her hands up in the air. “Why didn’t you get tested befo–”

  She stopped herself in mid-sentence and stared at me for a long moment. Then her hands dropped into her lap.

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head slightly, a look of disbelief on her face. “No, no, no, no, no . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte–”

  “That’s what you’re telling me?!” she cried.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. I reached for her, but she wrenched herself away from me and stood up.

  “This is not happening,” she said adamantly, still shaking her head. She looked at me, grief-stricken, and tears started rolling down her face.

  “Charlotte–” I said, standing up and reaching for her again.

  “Do you hear me?” she yelled. “This is NOT happening!” And then she turned, ran off the dock, and bolted into the woods.

  I stood there, staring at the spot where she’d disappeared, and the rain started up again.

  I thought about chasing after her, but I didn’t. I knew that what she really needed was time alone. Time alone with God, to talk to Him, yell at Him, and hopefully work things out with Him.

  So instead, I went back to our room and I prayed for her.

  I prayed that this would be what finally brought her to where she needed to be with Him . . . not the thing that drove her away for good.