17. Louella
— ? —
Louella
The first appointment, he sat in the corner.
Not next to me on the examination table. Not hovering over my shoulder asking questions. Just present, occupying space without claiming it, his attention focused and his mouth blessedly shut.
Dr. Patel raised an eyebrow when she saw him. I’d been coming alone for months; the sudden addition of a large, anxious man to the small examination room was noteworthy.
“This is Hector,” I said. “He’s… observing.”
“Observing.” Dr. Patel’s tone suggested she had opinions about that word choice. “Well, Hector-who-is-observing, the baby is measuring right on track. Twenty-two weeks, healthy heartbeat, no concerns.”
The ultrasound showed a profile now. A face, a nose, tiny fingers curled against a tiny cheek. Hector made a sound, halfway between a breath and a prayer, but he didn’t move from his corner.
“I can give you two a moment,” Dr. Patel said.
“That’s not necessary.”
But she was already gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
Hector stayed where he was. “I wasn’t sure you’d let me come.”
“I wasn’t sure either.” I watched the monitor, the rhythm of our baby’s heartbeat steady and strong. “But you asked. And you didn’t demand.”
“Progress.”
“Marginal progress.”
He laughed, quiet, self-deprecating. “I’ll take marginal.”
***
The cooking was a disaster from day one.
“What is that supposed to be?” I stared at the plate he’d presented with barely concealed horror. The substance on it might once have been chicken, but it had undergone a transformation that defied easy categorization.
“Lemon herb chicken.” He looked at it with obvious confusion. “The recipe said thirty minutes at four hundred degrees.”
“The recipe also probably said to use a meat thermometer.”
“There was a lot of text. I may have skimmed.”
I prodded it with a fork. The outside had seized into something rubbery while the inside stayed stubbornly pink.
“We are not eating this.”
“I know.”
“There’s flour on the ceiling.”
“That was the mixer. Technically not my fault.”
“How is that even possible with one chicken?”
He scraped the disaster into the trash with exaggerated care. “I may have also attempted a side dish.”
“There was a side dish?”
“Briefly. It didn’t survive.”
I started laughing. Couldn’t help it. The absurdity of Hector Lauder, man of precision and control and carefully cultivated competence, standing in my kitchen covered in flour, surrounded by the wreckage of what should have been a simple dinner.
“I’ll call the place in town,” I managed.
“That would be wise.”
He ordered half the menu because he’d forgotten which sandwich I liked best and didn’t want to ask and seem like he hadn’t been paying attention.
I’d loved their lobster roll for years. He’d been paying attention at one point; he’d just lost track during all those months of absence.
But he was trying. Badly. Hilariously. Persistently.
***
The therapy started two weeks after the family confrontation.
“I need you to understand this,” I told him when he mentioned it. “Going to therapy doesn’t prove anything to me. People go to therapy all the time without changing.”
“I know.”
“So don’t expect praise for making an appointment.”
“I don’t.” He hesitated. “But I want you to know it’s happening. That I’m trying to understand why I… why I became someone who could leave you alone with that much pain.”
“And what have you figured out?”
“That I was taught to see vulnerability as weakness. That my mother’s constant pressure made me associate love with performance.
That I measured my worth by achievement because no one ever told me I was enough just existing.
” He said it flatly, like he was reading a diagnosis.
“Also that I have significant avoidance tendencies and a pathological need for control that manifests in work addiction during emotional crises.”
“You got all that in two weeks?”
“It’s intensive therapy.” A flicker crossed his face, vulnerability, quickly suppressed. “I’m doing three sessions a week. I figured if I was going to do this, I should do it properly.”
“That’s very you.”
“Overachieving even at self-improvement?”
“More or less.”
He showed me the receipts when I expressed skepticism.
Not because I’d asked, because he wanted me to know he wasn’t just making claims. Dr. Melissa Alvarez, licensed psychologist, specializing in family systems and attachment disorders.
Appointment confirmations and session summaries, his name printed neatly at the top.
“You don’t have to prove…”
“Yes, I do.” He met my eyes. “You asked me to show you who I’m going to be. Words aren’t enough anymore. So I’m going to show you. As many times as it takes, in as many ways as you need.”
***
The nursery happened on a Tuesday.
I came home from the gallery to find Hector on a ladder in the small room I’d been avoiding since I moved in. Paint cans open at his feet, brush in hand, wearing clothes that had clearly never encountered manual labor before.
“What are you doing?”
“Painting.” He gestured at the wall, which was now approximately one-third covered in a soft sage green. “You mentioned you liked this color. For the nursery.”
“I mentioned that once. Three weeks ago. In passing.”
“I pay attention now.” He climbed down from the ladder, revealing a spectacular array of paint splatters covering his shirt, his arms, his face, and somehow his left ear. “Is the color right? I can get a different shade if…”
“The color is perfect.”
He smiled, genuine, unrehearsed. “Good. I wasn’t sure. The lady at the hardware store had a lot of opinions about undertones.”
“How much paint is actually on the wall versus on you?”
“I’d estimate sixty-forty.” He looked down at himself. “Possibly fifty-fifty.”
“You’ve never painted a room in your life, have you?”
“I’ve painted many rooms.” He paused. “Figuratively. In meetings. About painting rooms.”
I laughed again. Twice in one month, a record for recent history.
He finished the nursery over the next three days, wearing progressively more paint and progressively less of his original dignity. The trim was crooked. The ceiling line wavered. There was a handprint on one wall where he’d caught himself falling off the ladder.
It was the most beautiful room I’d ever seen.
***
The garden started as surveillance.
“You’re here again,” I said, finding him in the volunteer plot at the community center on Saturday morning. He was kneeling in the dirt, gloves on, methodically weeding around tomato plants.
“I’m learning about vegetables.”
“At the exact time I volunteer here every week?”
“Convenient coincidence.”
“You hate getting dirty.”
“I’m expanding my horizons.” He pulled a weed with excessive concentration. “Also I looked up the health benefits of gardening for stress management. My therapist suggested activities that ground me in the present moment.”
“And this has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you.” He sat back on his heels, looking up at me. “But I’m also trying not to push. So I’m here, doing what you do, and if you want to talk to me you can. If you don’t, I’ll just keep weeding.”
“That’s manipulative.”
“It’s presence without pressure. Dr. Alvarez says it’s healthy.”
“Dr. Alvarez hasn’t met you.”
But I let him stay. Week after week, Saturday after Saturday. He got better at identifying weeds. Worse at hiding how much he wanted to reach for me.
***
The thunderstorm came out of nowhere.
One minute we were transplanting seedlings; the next, the sky opened and rain came down in sheets. Everyone scattered for their cars, but the equipment shed was closer, and Hector grabbed my arm and we ran.
The shed was small, dark, smelling of fertilizer and wet earth. Rain drummed on the metal roof like a thousand impatient fingers.
“Well.” I pushed wet hair out of my face. “This is unfortunate.”
“Could be worse.” He was soaked through, his shirt plastered to his chest, water running down his face. “Could be hailing.”
Thunder cracked. Lightning illuminated the small space, throwing his features into stark relief.
And he grinned.
Not the polished smile I’d grown used to during our marriage, the one calculated for boardrooms and society events. This was different. Reckless. Young. Like the man I’d married at that vineyard four years ago, before everything went wrong.
“Race you to the car.”
“What?”
“The car. It’s maybe two hundred feet. I bet I can beat you.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I’m out of shape. We’re evenly matched.”
“That’s insane.”
“That’s fun.” He was already opening the shed door. “Come on, Lou. When’s the last time you did anything stupid just because it felt good?”
The rain was still coming down in sheets. It was cold, impractical, entirely unreasonable to run through it for no purpose.
“On three,” I said.
His grin widened.
We ran.
I don’t know if I beat him. The rain was blinding, the ground slippery, both of us laughing too hard to maintain any real speed. We crashed into the car simultaneously, grabbing at the door handles, tumbling into the front seat in a tangle of wet limbs and gasping breath.
“That was…” He was laughing, actually laughing, water streaming down his face. “That was completely ridiculous.”
“Your idea.”
“My best idea in years.”
We sat there, soaked and freezing and absurdly happy. The rain continued its assault on the car roof. Inside, fogging windows created a private world.
“You’re different,” I said.
He turned to look at me. Water drops clung to his eyelashes. “I’m trying to be.”
“I know.”
A change moved through his expression. Hope, maybe. Fear. The vulnerability he’d spent a lifetime hiding.
“I can’t remember the last time you made me laugh on purpose,” I said.
“Neither can I. That’s one of the things I’m working on. In therapy.” He paused. “Apparently I developed a pathological seriousness as a defense mechanism against a childhood environment that punished spontaneity.”
“That’s a lot of words.”
“I have a lot of sessions to fill.”
I reached out. Touched his face. Felt the rough stubble, the warm skin beneath the cold rainwater.
“I’m starting to believe it,” I said. “That you’re trying. That you might actually become someone different.”
His breath caught. “Lou…”
“Not yet.” I pressed my fingers against his lips. “I’m not ready. There’s still so much broken between us.”
“I know.”
“But I’m starting to believe it might be fixable.”
His hand came up, covered mine where it rested against his face.
“Whatever you need,” he said. “However long it takes.”
I looked at him, this man I’d married, lost, and was somehow finding again. The rain drummed on. The windows fogged deeper. And I pulled him toward me, feeling the moment stretch between us, charged with everything we’d been and everything we might become.
“Not yet,” I whispered against his mouth. “But soon.”