Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
HAPPILY EVER DURING
Arden
We're standing on different sides of a room so carefully designed that even our places in it feel predetermined. Everything here screams careful curation from the hand painted wallpaper to the antique Persian rug. The numerous throw pillows on the king sized bed between us seem to mock the distance they create, each one a small fortress in what has always been a place we can connect easily.
Now it's bearing witness to the single worst fight of our married lives. In the same house we ran from years ago. Some of the original cast of characters returning for this encore performance.
“The last thing I need is for these people to know that this..." I gesture between us, the space feeling wider with each word, "is something they can actually impact."
I inject the words with more venom than I mean to, but we so rarely find ourselves across this gaping crater of views that I don't know how else to bridge it except with anger. The tears threatening to spill feel like betrayal.
"These people? These people are family. I never see them but you pushed me to come, and now you're mad…" His hands run through his hair trying to keep his composure. “I don’t even know what you’re mad about!” he bursts out, frustration breaking through. And I hate that neither do I.
It became one of those arguments that manifested out of nothing more than a tense situation and suddenly you're looking at the only person who can absorb every sharp edge you possess, every jagged piece of yourself you wish you could file smooth. The fight started over something real, his family's subtle digs, my pushing too hard for this visit, but somewhere along the way it morphed into this ugly thing.
The worst part? I see it happening. I watch myself say things I know will hurt him, watch him flinch and return fire. The argument loses its original shape, becomes formless and mean, until we're just two people who love each other more than anything standing on opposite sides of a room, trying to hurt each other because we've hurt ourselves. Loving someone like this makes you both stronger and more vulnerable all at once. How the person who knows exactly how to hold you together also knows exactly where your seams are weakest.
The knock at the door adjusts our postures automatically, where we'd both bent over the bed between us. The love we normally found for each other in bed is lost now, replaced by the ugliness this house breeds.
We straighten at the intrusion as the door opens and his brother Cal, pops his head in. The tears running down my face are clearly visible, and I watch his judgment land there first, emotion being such a gauche thing, after all.
"Everything alright? We can hear you in the library," he asks with no care in his voice. And somehow it’s all so much worse, not just that they can hear us, though I had hoped to prevent that at all costs. But that of all places, the room with the greatest stories of all, is hearing the ripples of this fight, like it will infect the printed pages with ugliness.
"It's fine," Will clips out, tension evident in every syllable, clearly trying to urge Cal along. Not wanting to allow anyone else access to this raw moment, not wanting himself exposed to people he quite literally has kept himself covered around.
"Things don't seem fine." Cal swings his head to me, not outright assigning blame but acknowledging that I must again be the presence that disrupts this household.
"It's been a stressful week," Will says, sobering in the presence of his family in a way only years of experience could perfect.
"Don't let a lovers quarrel ruin a perfectly good evening, dad is waiting for you." Cal turns to leave but it's the bite in Will's delivery that halts him in the doorway.
"For fucks sake.” Something raw breaking through his careful facade. “She's not my lover, Cal, she's my wife . And he can keep waiting."
As Cal exits, so do I, pausing before I've fully retreated into the bathroom to hide.
"I'm not going to dinner. I'll see you when you're back. Apologize for me."
“There’s no part of you I need to apologize for.”
I shut the bathroom door behind me, turning the knob of the bathtub faucet and tossing in some of the spa products that never get any used in this guest room. Wasted like so much else in this house.
The water begins to fill, turning it to scolding. The aroma overwhelms the room as I step out of my clothes, leaving them puddled by the claw foot of the tub. I sink down into a bath as I have countless times before when I need an escape. No one can tell if you're crying underwater.
I can feel the footsteps in the bedroom adjacent where I've just left my husband standing mid-argument. No. Not mid. His brother's intrusion ended it. And I hear the echo of the door shut as it reverberates through the water. Finally breaking the surface and taking a breath.
I don't know how long I soak. Four full drains and refills. Full prune. And one more total sob. Each time I empty and refill the tub, I think about the first time we came here as a couple, how terribly that went. But I was naive in thinking things had changed.
It's the soft knock on the door, as it slowly opens, that pulls me from my memories. The man standing there is very different from the one I left standing on the other side of it. His eyes remain bloodshot, but it's not alcohol causing it now, the tears are as evident as mine. He hangs a white fluffy robe on the back of the door, bringing it in as a gesture. An offering. But clearly the least important one he has.
"How was dinner?" I ask flatly, devoid of any real interest.
"Arden." He breathes my name like a confession containing whole paragraphs of an apology that follow it, as he drops down to his knees by the side of the bath.
"Never again."
His forearms rest on the rim of the tub, his head hanging towards his chest. Looking more hungover from the emotional turmoil than the alcohol he was drunk on not that long ago.
"Same team," he says, scanning my face. "We won't do this. I'm never going to put you in a position like this again. Ever again. I'm sorry. I let the situation get the better of me… Being with these people… The stress of it….I'm sorry."
"I don't want that at the expense of your family. I feel awful. And you looked at me like I was awful. Like I am who they think I am. The one who took you from them." The words catch in my throat, old fears rising to the surface like the bubbles in the bath.
"You could never take me from my family,” he declares with quiet certainty. ” You are my family." His hand finds mine under the water, our fingers interlacing automatically.
"How was dinner?" I ask again, needing to know what story they're telling about us now.
"I didn't go. I went for a run. I cleared my head. And have been sitting outside the bathroom door for the last hour." The admission makes my heart clench. I picture him there, leaning against the door, listening to the water drain and refill, waiting for the right moment.
He pulls the plug from the drain and I watch as his eyes follow the spiral water spout emptying the tub. I lean forward towards the wall of the tub, not to be wholly exposed as the bath empties. While the water might be transparent, it feels safer somehow.
He pulls the robe from the door and I stand in the bath as he wraps it around me. He tightens the tie around my waist and leans down slightly, heaving me into his arms. I'm bundled and warm. I'm where I belong nestled against him. Though an hour ago I couldn't fathom this.
He kisses me, with apology. The one he just verbalized. And holds me tight against him wrapped in the thickness of the terrycloth robe.
“Never again" he whispers to himself as much as to me, as he carries me the ten paces to the bedroom. Setting me down atop it and curling his body around mine.
"I love you. Nothing matters beyond that. Not now, not ever. I'm sorry I let myself forget that. It's you and me on this team, no one else."