Chapter Twenty-Three Jonah
Chapter Twenty-Three Jonah
Just like on our wedding night, Sadie spent the evening crying, but this time it was with happy tears.
‘She’s back,’ she wept into my chest.
‘I’ve got her back.
’
I had a few deeply uncharitable thoughts about how long it had taken and how thin Chess’s reasoning seemed to me, 53 but I wasn’t about to articulate them.
I still had a long way to go before I became an authority on being a good sibling – and in any case, this was not a situation that needed a devil’s advocate.
Instead, I just held my wife close and stroked her hair and let her have this.
No matter how angry I was about how Chess had made Sadie feel these last few months, I would not be poisoning this particular well.
‘How are you feeling?’ Sadie asked me, turning her face into my skin and pressing her lips to my collarbone.
‘I’ve been so wrapped up in my own shit that I haven’t been giving you the attention you deserve, even though you’re literally on the brink of sacrificing your career.
Are you doing all right?
’
I thought about it for a second, fingers drifting over her skin.
‘I’d be lying if I said yes,’ I replied, ‘but I’m doing better than I thought I’d be.
’
It had helped, spending the morning with Fiona while Sadie was with Chess.
We’d sat at her kitchen table with a pot of ginger tea after the kids had gone to school and we’d talked it out.
No matter what Dad’s drilled into you, there is life for Fishers outside academia , Fi had said to me.
If we need to, we’ll find yours, Jonah.
I promise.
Then she’d smiled and said, I’ll help, and something in my heart had swelled so much it was almost painful, because I believed her.
‘You’re not going to lose your job, though,’ Sadie said, kissing my jawline.
‘We’re not going to let it happen.
I don’t know if I’ve really properly communicated how good Chess is at being a lawyer, but if you think I’m a good scholar…
’
‘ Brilliant is the word I believe I like to use.’
‘Sorry for paraphrasing when I should have quoted, you pedant.’ She nipped at my earlobe.
‘Anyway, however brilliant you think I am as a scholar, she’s a million times more brilliant as a lawyer.
’
Then she sighed.
‘I can’t believe I misread her letter like that.
’
I repressed a snort.
I absolutely could believe it.
There was a narratological phenomenon called overreading, where people read things into a text that weren’t really there.
54 When Sadie had shown me Chess’s letter yesterday, it had been reasonably clear to me that she – caught in her months-long spiral of grief and guilt – had overread it.
It hadn’t been totally clear, though.
The blame did not sit entirely on Sadie’s shapely shoulders.
I didn’t know if Chess had intended her letter to be ambiguous or not, but she had certainly left a lot of room for interpretation.
Not that I would be saying any of this to Sadie.
Wife not actively crying, Jonah doesn’t feel like he’s dying.
55
‘For someone with a PhD in reading things, you’d think I’d be better at it.
’ Sadie traced circles over my heart.
‘Look at how egregiously I misread you, for years and years and years.’
This time, I did snort.
‘You didn’t misread me.
Not the whole time, anyway.
I deserved a lot of the disdain you threw my way.
Just like cooking and cleaning, I learnt how not to be an annoying arsehole embarrassingly late.
’
Sadie smiled into my throat.
‘You’ve left me such an opening there,’ she said, ‘so I want you to read the fact that I’m not taking it as a sign of how much I love you.
’
‘Yes, yes, I’m still an annoying arsehole.
’ I kissed her temple.
‘No one is more restrained than you, wife.’
She chuckled.
I tightened my arm around her.
‘If you want an example of someone catastrophically misreading a situation, though,’ I said, ‘let me tell you about how you broke my heart when we were nineteen.’
To Sadie’s chagrin and my well-hidden relief, Chess had declined the offer to stay at our place while she was here, opting instead to stay in the hotel room she’d booked.
She did, however – to Sadie’s delight and my well-hidden chagrin – extend her stay so she could spend some time working with Julia and the union on the first steps of the anti-Renewniversity Phase Three campaign, and Sadie insisted we take her out to dinner.
‘The Jonah in Chess’s head is the tweed bro I spent a solid decade shit-talking to her,’ she said, standing in the kitchen as we took a quick tea break the following afternoon.
‘I want her to get to know the real Jonah. Cardigan Jonah. Teddy Bear Jonah.’
‘Just do me one favour,’ I said.
‘Please don’t refer to me as Teddy Bear Jonah anywhere she – or, indeed, anyone in the world – could overhear you.
’
‘Fine, fine.’ She went up on her toes to kiss me.
‘I hear you. You’re a very manly man.
You have your pride.
’
Then she smiled against my lips.
‘You are a teddy bear, though. My teddy bear. And I’m not going to let you go.
’
‘Oh yeah?’ My fingers trailed down her sides and she yelped and then laughed as I hoisted her up against the fridge.
‘Prove it.’
Sadie wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist.
‘You’re on, Fisher.
’
She proved it.
I still had the half-moon marks of her fingernails carved deep into my shoulder blades when we left the house for dinner a few hours later.
She had clung to me.
We met Chess in front of Tsundoku.
‘I’m so excited to show you this place, Chessie,’ Sadie said.
‘You’re going to love it.
’
‘I’m sure I will.
Hello, Jonah.
’
I kissed both her cheeks European-style in greeting – air kisses, my beard only barely brushing her skin.
‘Hello, Chess.’
Unusually, Isamu, not Satoshi, was behind the bar.
‘Nice to see you, Sadie, Jonah,’ he said.
‘And—’
‘This is my sister.’
Sadie was always beautiful, but radiating joy like this, she was incandescent.
I couldn’t resist pressing my lips to her hair.
She smiled up at me.
‘Francesca Shaw,’ Isamu said.
‘An extremely valued customer.’
‘This is Isamu, our landlord,’ Sadie explained.
‘He’s the wine-maker.
He’s usually down at the vineyard, but—’
‘I had some business to discuss with my brother,’ Isamu said, beckoning to Satoshi, who was emerging from the back.
‘He’ll get you seated and pour you something special.
Welcome, Francesca.
’
‘Thank you,’ Chess said simply, twining her fingers together in front of her.
Sadie had told me many times that Chess had a lot of opinions about wine, but she was relatively quiet as Satoshi talked us into a bottle of their new non-vintage sparkling.
‘I know, professionally, Jonah and my lives have gone to shit, but still – we need to celebrate!’ Sadie declared.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Chessie.
So, so, so glad you’re here.
’
‘I’m glad too, sweet—Sadie,’ Chess said, as we all clinked our glasses together.
‘Cheers.’
Unable to keep the smile off her face, Sadie carried the bulk of the conversation, telling Chess everything about everything, from what a cartoon villain Petrovski was, to our misadventures in babysitting, to all the new things she’d learnt about wine from our acquaintance with the Tsukamoto brothers.
‘You’d be so proud of me,’ she said, leaning over to top up our glasses.
‘I used the word terroir in a conversation the other day – and I’m, like, ninety per cent sure I used it accurately.
’
‘I’m always proud of you,’ Chess said, ‘but well done. Very impressive.’
‘We’ll have to go out to dinner with Fiona sometime – Jonah’s sister.
I think you two will really get on.
I’m only ever going to be an enthusiastic wine amateur, but she really knows what she’s talking about.
You can fight over who loves Bibliophile more.
’
Chess chuckled.
I did too, keeping what I was actually thinking – that if she ever said anything even remotely combative to Fi, then we would have a capital-P Problem – off my face.
‘This is where I got all the books I sent to you,’ Sadie said, gesturing at the bookshelves around us.
‘I have no idea how Satoshi keeps the romance section so well-stocked – like, who keeps bringing in all these second-hand books and why aren’t they keeping them for themselves?
– but he does such a good job.
’
‘Of course I do,’ Satoshi said, overhearing her on his way past our table.
‘This is not a snobby establishment, my friend. It is a business! I love to make money! I make a point of keeping that section well-maintained.’
‘You’re a prince,’ Sadie said, as Satoshi grinned and headed back up towards the bar.
Her phone started vibrating on the table.
‘It’s Julia,’ she said.
‘It’s probably about the campaign.
I should take it.
’
‘Go,’ Chess and I said at the same time.
‘I’ll grab some food menus on the way back, so we can order dinner,’ Sadie promised, and disappeared.
Which left Chess Shaw and I alone, for only the second time in recorded history.
I took a sip from my champagne flute.
This was my sister-in-law.
For Sadie’s sake, I needed to exhibit some restraint.
I needed to shove down every bit of toxic argumentative programming my dad had ever jammed into my head.
I needed to let it go.
‘Spit it out,’ Chess said.
I looked at her.
She took a sip from her own flute.
‘Don’t give me the mock innocence.
I know there are things you’re dying to say to me.
So spit them out.
’
‘I have no interest in starting a fight with you,’ I said.
‘Sadie would hate that, and the only thing I care about is her being happy.’
‘On that,’ Chess said, ‘we can agree.’
‘Sadie loves you,’ I said.
‘If you’re important to her, you’re important to me.
I know you’ve never particularly liked me, but we’re family now, and…
I don’t know how much Sadie’s told you about this, but I’ve been rebuilding my relationship with my own sister, and that means a lot to me.
I want Sadie to have a good relationship with you.
I want to have a good relationship with you.
Genuinely.
’
‘We can agree on that too,’ she said.
‘You’ve been good to her.
You’re clearly good for her.
Keep doing that, and you and I will be absolutely fine.
’
‘That goes for you too, though.’
My grip on my restraint slipped.
I was only hanging on with one hand now, dangling over the cliff as I stared her directly in the eye.
‘I want us to get along, Chess,’ I said.
‘But if you ever do something like this to Sadie again – if I ever hear my wife crying herself to sleep over you again – I will ruin you.’
How I would do that, I had no clue.
I was a tweed-wearing academic on the brink of unemployment with precious little experience of the world outside the ivory tower.
I had no idea how one went about ruining someone.
But I was an intelligent man.
If I had to, I would figure it out.
‘That’s fair,’ Chess replied.
‘If I hurt her like this again, I deserve to be ruined.’
Her gaze went far away for a moment, as if she were looking into some other world just over my shoulder, misery flashing across her face.
Part of me wanted to turn around and see what she was looking at.
Another part wanted to reach across the table, touch her arm, and ask her if she was all right.
‘It sounds like we have a deal, then,’ I said instead, as lightly as I could, offering her my hand.
Chess shook it.
It was obvious where Sadie had learnt her assertive handshake.
‘Deal.’
Then she let go, leaning back in her chair and taking a sip of sparkling.
‘I got your email.’
‘I figured. The timing of when you sent your letter to Sadie… it checked out.’
She teased her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment.
She didn’t bite it, but the mannerism was still so similar.
‘There were some things in there,’ she said at last, ‘that I needed to hear.’
And yet you chose to respond in a way that was unbelievably easy for her to misinterpret, I did not say.
No one would benefit from me arguing the point, even if there had to be more to the story than she was saying.
‘I love Sadie more than anything else in the world,’ she said.
‘I might never stop being angry about you riding her coat-tails, no matter how much she insists that you deserve this job as much as she does.’
That was fair enough.
I might never be over the guilt of that myself.
‘But the fact that you’re willing to give it all up for her if you have to – that means a lot,’ Chess said.
‘That goes a long way with me.’
My grip on my restraint slipped again.
‘Don’t thank me for loving her.
’
‘I wasn’t going to.
’
Chess met my gaze.
Even subdued, it was easy to tell this was a Shaw I was sitting across from, all fists, all teeth.
‘I would never thank anyone for loving her, like it was some favour, some hardship, something they had to go out of their way to do,’ she said.
‘She deserves all the love in the world.’
‘Agreed.’
‘So I want you to know that I’m going to fight like hell to make sure you can keep your job,’ she said, waving past me as Sadie approached our table again.
‘What the university is doing is in a grey area between legality and illegality, but even if we don’t get a ruling in our favour, I can absolutely fucking bury them in paperwork and red tape.
If nothing else, I can make it much more expensive for them to fire you than to keep you on.
’
‘Plus,’ Sadie said, sitting back down, putting her phone on the table and then lacing her fingers through mine, ‘according to Julia, we’re already getting a ton of interest on the media side of things.
Lyons is going to look like they’re trying to fire you so they can fund a brand-new major in kicking puppies.
If we pull enough public heartstrings, the pressure on the university will be so intense they’ll have to back down.
’
I nodded.
I didn’t think it would be that easy – years of growing up with Professor Christian Fisher as a father had shown me that universities did not particularly care about anyone’s feelings – but I was hardly about to say it.
Sadie drew our joined hands to her lips, kissing my knuckles.
‘We’re about to become the nation’s most extremely married couple,’ she said.
‘I hope you’re ready for that.
’
I used my free hand to tip her face up to mine.
‘What do you fucking think, Shaw?’
She grinned.
I kissed the tip of her nose.
Opposite us, Chess took a sip of her sparkling and almost certainly shoved down about a thousand things she wanted to say.
56
That, at least, I could respect.
‘Thank you, Chess,’ I said, turning away from Sadie to look her in the eye.
‘For helping us fight this.’
She gave me a tight-lipped smile.
‘You’re welcome, Jonah.
’
One day, I might push Chess harder.
Much as I’d meant everything I’d just said about wanting a good relationship with her – and much as it would make me a giant hypocrite, given my own track record as a sibling – it was difficult to set aside how angry it had made me, watching my wife suffer for all those months.
One day, I might ask why she’d really done it.
But tonight, Sadie was so happy sitting there with both of us, fingers squeezing mine in approval, and that was more important than anything else – so even if that day might eventually come, it was not going to be today.
57
‘Now, talk me through this food menu,’ Chess said, businesslike.
‘Tell me what’s good.
’
She and Sadie got into a discussion over whether we should order a cheeseboard before dinner or after – ‘I mean, we’re obviously getting the cheeseboard,’ Sadie said, ‘it’s just a matter of when.
’ I let them talk, speaking only when spoken to.
Chess and I might never truly see eye to eye, but on the most important point, we were in clear and firm agreement.
If Sadie was happy, then that was good enough.
‘No!’ Satoshi barked suddenly.
‘Out!’
He pointed a finger at the man who had just come into the bar.
‘You are not welcome here. You will never be welcome here. Out!’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me.’ Satoshi was shaking.
Isamu put a warning hand on his shoulder and said something quietly to him in Japanese.
Satoshi snarled something back.
Isamu looked at the man and folded his arms.
Even under the white dress shirt he was wearing, his biceps bulged ominously.
‘It would be best,’ he said, ‘if you left.’
‘Fine,’ the man said curtly.
The door swung closed behind him.
‘Jonah, what’s wrong?
’ Sadie asked me.
She must have felt my arm stiffen around her.
‘That was Matt.’ I drained my water glass.
‘Fiona’s piece-of-shit husband.
’
‘Oh, shit, darling. Are you all right?’
I nodded.
‘Fi might not be, though. The one upside of him not paying child support is that she doesn’t have to deal with him.
If he’s back in town…
’
‘What’s her legal situation?
’ Chess asked.
‘Does she have a decent lawyer? Because if they’re not protecting her and her rights properly, I can help.
I don’t do family law myself, but I’ll find you a shark.
’
I glanced at her, surprised.
‘I have a soft spot,’ she said, ‘for sisters.’
53 I thought I was smothering you, so the only other alternative was completely exiting your life – really?
That would get some stern words in the margins about logical leaps and a profound lack of nuance if it were an assignment I was grading.
54 If you’ve ever sat through an amateur dramatic society production of Hamlet set in an insane asylum – of which I’ve somehow seen three – you know exactly what overreading is.
55 Happy tears excepted.
All good mantras should have fine print in the footnotes.
56 Could this be an overreading?
Sure.
Was it?
Definitely not.
57 It was amazing, really, the amount of restraint I was able to employ now that I wasn’t spending most of my mental energy on keeping my love for her hidden in the footnotes.