Married...Again

by Stephanie Doyle

  It felt awkward being out of their normal positions. He’d always sat on the couch, but she’d always sat on the couch with him. Curled up along his side. Never once had he thought it was annoying or invasive. To always have her pressed against him whenever he sat on a piece of furniture had been the natural order of things between them.

  He had no doubt her decision to take the recliner was deliberate.

  Sipping on his wine, he noted the quality and sighed.

  “It’s like everything is new again,” he said.

  “I can imagine that must be what returning from the dead feels like.”

  He turned to her. “I felt dead. I knew I wasn’t. If nothing else, the constant pain was a reminder of that. But I was gone from the world I knew. You, Mom and Dad, my fellow researchers. Everyone was gone. And as kind as...well, frankly, giving as the villagers I stayed with were, it wasn’t the same. Even after two years they were still strangers to me.”

  “That’s not like you,” she noted as she sipped on her wine. “You were more likely to make friends wherever you went. Any time we went out to a bar, you always left knowing and liking more people than before you went inside.”

  “I know. It was definitely a departure. I couldn’t blame it on just the language, either. I had found my way along in plenty of other places where I didn’t know the language. It could have been the trauma of the wreck itself. I needed to heal from that along with everything else that went wrong with me.”

  Max dropped his head along the cushions of the couch. He’d felt this way before. As if the stuff he’d had inside his head was too heavy to hold up with his neck alone. Besides, it was easier not to have to look at her when he said the bad stuff.

  “I tossed the bodies off the raft, Nor. I knew when I did it there would be no proper burial. No cremation. An empty casket at best for their families to bury. I knew that, and I still did it anyway. Because they were dead and I wasn’t and it seemed...I don’t know. Wrong to hold on to their bodies. As if it was the only way to stay alive. Like if I had kept them on the raft, then they would pull me down with them.”

  “Max,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. Trying to push the thoughts away. The macabre wasn’t exactly romantic.

  A timer dinged, and the distraction was a welcome one. He set his wine on the table in front of him and pushed himself to standing. “I’ll help.”

  She nodded.

  He’d been good at that, he thought. Trying to remember every moment of their marriage. What he’d done well, where he’d failed. Helping with household chores had been a no-brainer. Mostly because his mom had insisted he know how to take care of a house. From cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry. To landscaping, home repairs and plumbing.

  Max had never shied away from any of it, having his parents as role models. They had been partners. Until the end. Max supposed there was some solace in the idea that they died together. He couldn’t imagine one living after the other had passed. A true fifty-fifty couple.

  He couldn’t say he and Eleanor were like that. Mostly because Eleanor had always been more geared toward doing everything herself. Something else she’d picked up from her mother. From necessity after her father died. But Max wondered if Marilyn’s role had been that of caretaker to both children and home prior to her husband’s death.

  “Do you miss your father, Nor?”

  Max was in the kitchen, ready to make himself useful, but he could see there was no point. The lasagna was out of the oven and steaming. She was cutting up the garlic bread. Before she would have gone so far as to make a salad, but obviously, she’d worked right up until they left.

  She served the meal as she considered his question.

  “The easy answer is of course I do. Every day. And in some ways that’s true, but the reality is he’s been gone for so many years that there are days when I don’t think of him. When I realize that, it always makes me a little sad.”

  “You think in fifteen years I won’t think about Harry and Sarah?”

  Eleanor set his plate in front of him, then touched his arm. It was a simple gesture, her hand resting on his forearm. But it reminded him how much more he wanted. There had been a moment, driving up to the house in Nebraska, when he’d thought about what kind of welcome he might receive. He didn’t know if there was going to be a husband and children. He didn’t know how much anger was still going to be between them.

  So he’d had this fantasy. Where he walked through the door and she ran to him. Where he pulled her into his arms and held her with every ounce of the strength he’d recovered. Where he pulled her down with him to the floor and ravished her and she relished in it.

  That obviously didn’t happen.

  For now, he would take the touch of her hand on his arm.

  “You’re never going to forget them. That I can promise you. And there will always be something you do or something you say when you’ll realize it was because of them that you’re doing it or saying it. Sometimes I sigh...”

  “Who, you?” He was teasing her. Nor sighed. A lot. It was her way of thinking before she spoke.

  “Yes, me,” she retorted. “I know I do it, but it wasn’t until after he was gone that I realized how much I sounded like him when I did. It was his sigh. His habit that I picked up. So even on those days I might not think about him, or miss him, all anyone has to do is ask me a question, and I let out a sigh...and he’s with me.”

  “You’re being nice to me.”

  “Well, you were dead. Seems like the right thing to do.”

  He huffed. “Smells good.”

  “I can’t take credit. I’ve become a huge fan of all those hardworking chefs behind the scenes at the grocery store who take pleasure in feeding me.”

  He found the cutlery drawer and got knives and forks for both of them. They sat at the kitchen bar rather than at the larger dining table and dug in.

  “So Allie is getting married.” It seemed like a safe topic to bring up. More geared to the future rather than their past. A place, he thought, to start to talk to one another again.

  “She is. I’m thrilled for her. Mike is an amazing guy. I know this because he’s willing to go along with all of Marilyn’s plans for the wedding.”

  “I imagine she’s happy they are not eloping.” It wasn’t lost on Max that his first big mistake in dealing with Marilyn Gaffney was depriving her of a wedding for her daughter. For the most part, it had been downhill from there.

  He was going to have to change that, he thought. He had just taken it for granted that his mother-in-law wasn’t his biggest fan. Like one of those clichéd married-man jokes that he and his mother-in-law never got along. Now Max could see how wasting family, even family through marriage, was not an option for him.

  “Oh, I don’t know if they even had a choice. Which, of course, upsets me. For Allie. The next coming months should be about what she wants, what Mike wants. I’m afraid none of that is likely. It’s going to be about what Marilyn wants, and I don’t know that Allie is... I don’t want to say strong enough to fight her. It’s more like she’s resolved herself to not fighting her.”

  “She was always the peacemaker,” Max noted.

  “What do you mean?”

  He took a sip of wine and looked at Eleanor, feeling that rush of euphoria that he was looking at her again. Relearning all her expressions. The expression she wore now, he knew well. Always those lifted eyebrows, like he’d surprised her with something when he knew he hadn’t.

  “Nor, puleeze.”

  “What?”

  “Allie has spent, what I imagine has been every day since your father died, desperately trying to make you and your mother get along. You could see it. She would tie herself up in knots trying to please you both. It makes sense. She was only what...eleven when your dad died. The earth had to shake under her feet when that happened.
Making sure her mother and her sister continued to be a family unit would have been paramount in her mind.”

  “You know I always used to hate it when you did that.”

  “What?” He didn’t want to do anything Nor hated.

  “When you were smarter about my family than I was. I feel guilty. It was Allie’s engagement party and...”

  “And your dead husband crashed it and ruined it. I’m sorry about that.”

  Eleanor smiled. “Yes, while that had been very dramatic, it’s not what I feel guilty about. I was already giving Allie grief about not standing up to Mom. I was pretty sure she didn’t want the engagement party to begin with, but capitulated to the will of Marilyn Gaffney. Maybe she did, but I shouldn’t make her feel less for that. I would have apologized...”

  “But you had other things on your mind.”

  Another tweak of her lips. “Just a few.”

  “Am I going to have to beat up that guy you were with? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll try, but there is a good bet I might lose. I’m only at about maybe eighty percent of my former strength.”

  “Daniel knows where I am this weekend. Not that I owed him any explanation, but I felt it...it was the right thing to do. He thinks it’s a good thing. To get some...closure. He thinks I wouldn’t be able to move on without it.”

  Carefully, Max set his glass down and looked at Nor. “I don’t really want that.”

  She sighed. “Max...”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Hear me out. You came here with me for your reasons. I asked you to come with me for mine. But you need to know, I may be only eighty percent of my former self, but I’m going to fight, Nor. I’m going to fight like hell. Dinner was delicious. Thank you. But truth be told, the company was better.”

  That said, Max picked up both their empty dishes and washed them in the sink. When everything was cleaned and put away, he filled their glasses with more wine, and together they made their way toward the fire.

  Again, she chose to sit alone.

  Again, Max said nothing.

  Together they just sat and sipped their wine and looked at the crackling flames. And Max thought it was enough.

  For now, she was here, with him, for whatever reasons she had.

  Yes, it was enough.

  For now.

  Chapter Nine

  I’M GOING TO fight like hell.

  Eleanor stared at the wood beams above her head and thought about what that meant. There was nothing left to fight for. She didn’t understand how he couldn’t see it. Even before he’d been proclaimed dead, before they had suffered more than two years of separation—something that few couples might reasonably find their way back from—their marriage had already been over.

  She’d left him.

  No, he’d left her. She had to remember that. She needed to feel the anger that had pushed her out of her marriage. It would sustain her as she reconciled herself to the fact that Max Harper was alive again and in the world she lived.

  The knock on her door wasn’t soft or gentle. It was done with intent for her to hear it.

  “Max?”

  He opened the door, and the silhouette of him against the moonlight that filtered through the windows of the cabin struck her. As if everything that had happened since the party had been a dream. That he wasn’t really alive, but a ghost from her past she had to deal with before she could move on with her life.

  Then he stepped into her bedroom, their bedroom, and he was, all of a sudden, very real.

  “Is something wrong?”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, and she could see he was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. Nothing familiar to her. Nothing old and worn as had been his custom. Of course there was nothing like that around for him anymore. Everything he’d ever had was gone.

  She also noticed he had a pillow under his arm, a blanket slung over his shoulder. Like a little boy who’d had a bad dream in the night and was looking for someone to take away the fear.

  Except this was Max. And Max had never been afraid of anything.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” he finally said. “This isn’t some kind of trick or...seduction, heaven forbid. I just... I would like to lie on the floor next to you if you would let me.”

  “Max, I don’t know...”

  “Please, Nor. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Other than giving me a few hours outside of my head, maybe a chance to actually sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept in so long. And if I can’t sleep, then...at least I can listen to you breathe.”

  “Okay.” As if she could refuse him. No, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was how much she didn’t want to.

  He did as he said, settled the blanket on top of the rug next to her bed. A rug she knew was threadbare. He tossed the pillow down, then carefully lowered himself. She could see him taking care with his leg.

  It couldn’t have been comfortable. The hard floor, thin rug, the hum of pain in his leg. It was unlikely he would be able to sleep.

  But he’d listen to her breathe and he made it sound as if, just by doing that, she had given him some kind of gift.

  Of course that’s what it must be for him. He’d stared down his own death and survived. Everything that had happened since the night of the storm was one long gift for him.

  She still had trouble trying to imagine it. What had it been like to lie in that raft on the cold, endless ocean? To know his leg was broken, to watch others die around him. To bury them at sea, knowing there might not be anyone left to do that for him.

  Eleanor tried to close her eyes against his pain. But it was winding itself inside her, around her heart, and it wasn’t letting go.

  When Harry had come to tell her Max was gone, she’d spent days wondering how it had happened. Quickly? Slowly? Had he been terrified? Had he known it was happening? Had he drowned? Had he frozen to death?

  Now she knew he had been terrified. Knew he’d believed he was going to die.

  Except he was Max Harper and he’d found a way to live.

  And she was making him sleep on the floor because she was a coward.

  “Max, you can sleep with me on the bed. On top of the covers so—”

  “I’m fine,” he said from the floor.

  She leaned over the side of the bed. His arms were over his shoulders, his hands under his head. She could see the outline of his muscles and was again struck by how thin he was.

  She’d picked the lasagna because the pasta had been filled with meat and cheese.

  A meal that would stick to his bones. It’s something Marilyn might have said.

  “I mean it. I won’t be able to live with myself knowing how uncomfortable you are.”

  “Believe it or not, this might be the most comfortable I’ve been in two years.”

  “Max,” she said in a tone he would recognize.

  He sat up and they were at eye level. “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to weasel my way into your bed.”

  “I’m inviting you,” she reminded him.

  “If I was any good as a con man, then I would set it up so that you would invite me, thinking it was all your idea.”

  “Yes, but we both know you’re not that good at subterfuge.”

  He smiled, and she couldn’t help but smile back. It was true. Max was bold, cocky, a crusader and sometimes honest to a fault. Surprises, trickery and subterfuge were skills out of his grasp.

  Because every time he picked out a present for either her birthday or Christmas, one that he was particularly excited about, he always gave it to her early. He could never wait to see her reaction.

  One time he tried to plan a surprise party after they were first married. He’d managed to keep it a secret for weeks, then blew it the day of the party, not able to pull off exactly why she needed to stay away from their apartment between the hours o
f 6:00 and 8:00 p.m.

  Eleanor remembered being annoyed with him that she’d been forced to act surprised when she finally came home to everyone jumping out of corners.

  Annoyed with him. For being thoughtful enough to want to surprise her for her birthday. It all seemed so petty now.

  She moved over to make room on the bed. He dropped the blanket on top of the covers along with his pillow. Moments later, he was on his back, settled, and Eleanor had the thought she had probably made a mistake.

  She wasn’t going to sleep.

  Instead, she was going to stay up all night and listen to Max breathe. Just because she could.

  Damn it.

  She heard a soft huff. He was nowhere close to falling asleep, either.

  “We used to talk like this for hours.”

  “We did,” she agreed. Only now she couldn’t think what they could talk about. The past seemed too sad. So did the future really.

  “Don’t do what you usually did, either.”

  Eleanor didn’t know what he was talking about. She knew she didn’t have a snoring problem. “And exactly what was that?”

  “Cuddle. You were a cuddler. Big-time. If I wake up in the morning and find you draped all over me like a blanket, I’m going to kiss you.”

  “Max!”

  “I’m just saying don’t cuddle or suffer the consequences.”

  Eleanor didn’t exactly put kissing Max and suffering in the same category, but it was bad enough she was sharing a bed with him. Kissing him was simply out of the question.

  It’s just that he was always so warm. Like her own personal bed warmer. She could always find him during the night as a source of heat. Would he still blaze as hot after so long in the cold? It was hard to know. Not taking any chances, though, she rolled over on her side, her back to him.

  “Good night,” she mumbled into her pillow.

  “’Night, Nor. And...thank you.”

  She didn’t answer because she really didn’t think she deserved it. The least she could do was be here for him while he reacclimated to his life. The least she could do was be some company for him in the night. The least she could do was share a bed large enough for them both to sleep without touching.