Chapter 47
THE HOMEWORK
MAGGIE
Things remained strained between Zeke and I up until our next couple’s session with Barb.
I didn’t want him to worry over me, especially when I had been trying so hard to eat the food he made me, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit the truth about Spencer.
I knew Zeke would want to help. He would likely hand over the money instantly if I asked, which made me all the more resistant to doing so.
Knocking over that baggie had been a stupid accident; he didn’t need to drain his savings because of me.
Now that I had a job, I would find a way to get Spencer the damn money and put the entire thing to rest.
Barb sensed the tension between us the moment we stepped into her office. We took our designated spaces on the sofa across from her as she pursed her lips and shrewdly eyed us over her glasses.
“What happened?” she asked.
I shot a nervous glance to Zeke, who kept his posture rigid and his face blank. “What do you mean?”
She pursed her lips even tighter, so that her top lip was barely visible. “I mean I’ve seen soldiers holding live grenades with less anxiety than you two. Something happened since I saw you last.”
“There are still some things that Maggie isn’t ready to share with me,” Zeke explained, “and that hurts because I want her to share the things that matter with me.”
Barb nodded before jotting something down in the notebook on the table next to her. “And Maggie, how does it feel when Zeke says that?”
“It kills me because the last thing I want to do is hurt him,” I admitted. “But there will always be some things I can’t share with him. We’re two separate people, after all.”
Zeke sighed in frustration. “I know that. I’m not asking for everything. But if something bothers you to the point where you can’t focus on anything, I deserve to know something. I’m your husband, after all.”
His goddamn labels! Zeke’s preconceived ideas about marriage mostly came from books, I’d learned.
He read faster than anyone I ever met, but after devouring all of the classics as a child, he now primarily read non-fiction.
All he knew of husbands and wives could be gleaned from Dickens, Steinbeck, Poe… nobody relevant in the current century.
“Why does that mean so much to you? It’s just a slip of paper!” Irritation made the words come out harsher than I meant, but I didn’t apologize.
“Because I know there are expectations involved and I’m afraid I’m not meeting them because I don’t understand them!” Zeke confessed angrily.
Our therapist nodded sagely, like the wise old owl I imagined her to be. “Then let’s start there, Zeke. What do you think the expectations are?”
Barb’s calm demeanor helped settle both of us down. Zeke’s shoulders sagged a little as some of the fight left. “Husbands are supposed to be the providers. They work hard so that their wives don’t have to. The good ones make their wives happy. I can’t seem to do that.”
“But Zeke, you do make me happy,” I argued. “Happier than I’ve ever been. That’s why I wanted to marry you in the first place!”
To my utter shock, a tear slid down his cheek as he growled, “Then why did you break down right in front of me?!”
My jaw opened and closed several times as I fought over what to say. Barb stayed uncharacteristically quiet, her eyes volleying between the two of us as if she simply needed to referee the match.
“That had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. Don’t you see? The only reason I want to get better is for you!”
Zeke shook his head fiercely. “No. No, that’s wrong. You have to get better for you, Maggie. At the end of the day, no matter how much I want to keep you, you always have the option of leaving me. You can never escape yourself!”
A truth bomb ignited between us. Now I really didn’t know what to say. He was absolutely right. My health journey didn’t affect him the way it did me, and using him as a motivator would only lead to resentment. That was far too much pressure for anyone to handle.
This whole time I’d been unwittingly placing my recovery on his shoulders. Zeke didn’t have an eating disorder, I did. Zeke didn’t struggle with self-loathing, or anxiously check the sizes on his clothing, or count every single calorie he consumed. Those were my vices.
None of which had anything to do with his expectations as far as our marriage went.
The paranoia of coming home again to find his wife in the midst of another depressive episode made him question what he knew marriage to be.
Zeke needed answers. Having something so important remain so uncertain must have been eating him alive.
“We agreed to make our own version of normal, right? That we would find a way to be healthy and happy as we learned about ourselves? Shouldn’t that be true for our marriage, too?
” Tentative hope cracked in my voice, but Zeke’s eyes latched onto mine just the same.
“It can be whatever we want it to be, baby.”
We both offered small smiles, signs of truce, to one another. Lost in the moment, I jumped in my seat when Barb suddenly cleared her throat. I forgot she was even in the room.
“How are things intimately?” the therapist asked.
This time Zeke jerked in his seat. We exchanged guilt-ridden glances, two kids sitting in the principal’s office unwilling to rat the other out.
After a tense pause, I finally spoke for us. “We haven’t really been intimate. Not since we got married, at least.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Zeke suddenly admitted. My eyebrows rose in alarm. He had zero problems with his equipment way back in Savannah when we stopped at Madden Market.
“And why is that?” Barb asked.
Zeke’s hands started fidgeting, a clear sign that the topic made him uncomfortable.
After several long minutes he confessed, “I told Maggie that I loved her, and she didn’t say it back.
I’m glad she didn’t, because I don’t want her to say it if she doesn’t mean it, but I feel wrong being intimate with someone who doesn’t feel the same way. ”
“It’s just sex!” I snorted.
The emotion pooling in his eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life as Zeke turned to me and said, “It’s never just sex when it’s you, Maggie.” I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide until the shame swallowed me whole.
Barb, however, nodded in understanding. “You know what that means, don’t you, Zeke?” she asked. “That means you’re likely a demisexual.”
Both of us frowned in confusion at her. “A demisexual?” I repeated blankly.
Our therapist nodded again. “Demisexuals are individuals who only experience sexual attraction after creating a strong, emotional connection to another person. The gender doesn’t matter as much as the feelings do.”
Zeke let out a long breath, like he had been holding it while waiting for bad news. “I guess that does kind of make sense. I’ve only had sex with two other people before that I didn’t really know. Both experiences were awful.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” mused Barb. She wrote down another few notes in her journal before slamming it shut and leaning towards us.
“I just have to give you both homework. By the time you come back to my office next week, I want you two to be intimate. Be physical. Learn to identify the other’s needs.
Touch is an important part of a marriage, and if you’re going to really give this thing a try, you have to engage in all aspects of it.
Maggie, don’t worry about our Thursday session.
Just enjoy some special time with your husband! Now scoot!”
Walking out onto the street after a couple’s session like that felt oddly the same as walking out of the justice of the peace’s office.
The realization that I was married came crashing down, just like it had then, and I didn’t entirely know how to function in real time.
I kept glancing over at Zeke out of the corner of my eye, desperate to know if he was just as confused and lost as me.
“So…that went well,” Zeke joked. It lightened the moment enough for us to both laugh as we stupidly stood staring at one another in the middle of the sidewalk.
“I’ve never had a homework assignment quite like this one,” I added. I meant it as another lighthearted joke, but I noticed how Zeke winced. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine, Trouble.” Zeke cut me off with the wave of a hand. “We’re both learning.”
“Maybe we should schedule it?” I suggested. He thrived on structures and routine. “That way we both have time to prepare?”
“Okay. Saturday night,” he agreed. “We’ll spend the day together, do something fun, and then go home to…” his voice trailed off in unease as we both mentally filled in the blank.
Saturday arrived by warped speed. Zeke and I remained distantly polite throughout the week, operating like strangers sharing a hostel, as we counted down to D-Day.
My nerves were raw by the time I finally gave up on sleep the morning of.
I already heard Zeke in the kitchen making breakfast, so I decided to rip it off like a band-aid when I joined him.
Usually on Saturday mornings, Zeke opted for a simple run instead of a full blown workout, then he came home and cooked breakfast before I even woke up.
He would be in the shower, his own breakfast long gone, by the time I staggered out to the kitchen in search of coffee.
Seeing him now, nylon shorts slung low on his hips, back muscles rippling in their naked glory, while he minded the turkey bacon frying on the stove made it really easy for me to imagine sex with him. I wanted it. I wanted him.
But wanting him wasn’t enough. Barb said Zeke needed to feel an emotional connection. So if we were going to do anything, I had to open up a little bit and let Zeke feel something.