Chapter 13 #3
Here’s good, she says, so they cross to the grassy bank and a large wooden gate – it’s stiff, Robin struggles, she says can I help – but he finally tugs it free.
They startle a rabbit into the hedge, but are otherwise alone, and they walk for a while and then sit when they find a fallen tree stump.
Close, but not touching. Unsure. Robin lets out one long breath as Nora holds in her own.
Are you … sure you want to do this, he asks.
Two heartbeats. A chirr, from a bird.
Actually, he says, before she can answer, that’s not fair of me.
Course it is, Nora says, her voice strained. I want to tell you what I want. But it’s like I don’t know. I don’t have the words, to …
Explain, she thinks, how her life has been shaken like a Magic 8 Ball. Different answers held in her hands.
But it’s not fair suggesting this is all on you, Robin says.
You’re distracted, Nora, I see that, but I’ve been pretending I can pin it on other things.
Freya, being so off, about the engagement.
Bren showing up, and that phone call you found out about, and all your hang-ups because of that affair you saw –
Nora puts her head in her hands, because he knows about that; knows her, too, better than anyone.
– and I’ve been pretending it’s one or all of those things, Nora, when really, there’s something on me here, too. Something I’ve not told you.
New feeling, then, inside of her.
A slow-motion spread, like time itself is decelerating. Robin rubs his face, then cups one side of his head as he stares out at the unploughed fields.
I knew you never wanted to get married, he says. You’d always made that clear. Although I’d have married you after our first date, if you’d’ve let me.
A smile then, which soon fades.
And here we are almost ten years later, he goes on, after we’ve formally given notice, and seen our wedding venue that seemed perfect, to me, and I just have this sense, Nora, that you feel …
backed into a corner. Which is understandable.
Because why would you be all in, all of a sudden, after years of being … well … not.
Nora’s thoughts – snared, in her head – start to uncoil, as he says this last part.
With gratitude. Because he is not mad at her.
He is not even questioning her, not storming or crying or even demanding answers, and his mildness, his reasoning, his calm, even Robin-ness, is something she has always been drawn to, but she will not take advantage of that, she wants to keep talking, but to do so, she has to meet him on his level.
I guess it did throw me, Nora says. You buying a ring and all.
There is a pause, then. A stopgap, where she thinks he might laugh, pull her into him with one of his long arms. But instead he goes very still, looking out at the empty fields as he says that’s the thing, Nora. I didn’t.
A car drives along the road behind them, leaves a whoosh of silence in its wake.
Didn’t what?
I didn’t buy a ring.
And Nora thinks he’s teasing. Thinks he’s joking, April fool’s, but then he makes a pained kind of noise before turning to look at her, his mouth set.
And he says he wants her to know, before he goes into it, that the reason he hadn’t told her before now is just that it felt so right, when it happened. And he didn’t want to take it back.
Take what back, Nora asks, and Robin breathes out.
I didn’t mean to propose, he says.
She hears him say it. Doesn’t understand.
It was a ring I’d picked up for a photo shoot, Robin says. You just found it in my pocket, at lunch.
But, Nora says, you asked me to marry you.
I actually didn’t.
I’m sure you did.
Trust me on this, Nora. I didn’t say anything. You found the ring, and said yes.
Sinking realisation, then. Oh god.
But the thing is, Robin says, shifting sideways to look at her straight, his eyes pleading, I had to make a choice, Nora. In those three seconds, I had to decide something.
Nora tries to stay with him; tries to focus.
And I decided there was no reason not to run with it.
We weren’t going to do the wedding thing because you said you didn’t want to.
Which was really your mother saying she didn’t want you to, I think.
And we figured we didn’t need it, which we don’t, Nora, we don’t need to get married.
It’s expensive, and we love each other anyway, but I saw the …
excitement, in you. Just for a second, when you thought I’d asked.
Nora makes a small noise, deep in her throat.
Because the truth is, Robin ploughs on, I’ve always wanted to marry you. And I could live with you not wanting to marry me, if that’s how you felt, but then you said yes. And it was happening.
Several crows take off from the far edge of the field, black wings against the sunset.
I’m so … embarrassed, Nora says eventually, after the crows are long gone.
Please don’t be, Robin says. I should have told you.
I can’t believe you went along with it, like that.
I’m ecstatic I went along with it, Robin says, and his voice shifts to its usual, Robin-like cheer, and it is like the sun, if the sun had a sound, and it thaws the dread she hadn’t realised she’d been carrying, for weeks.
Truly, Nora, he says. It was the best thing I never did.
Thank you, misunderstanding. Thank you, universe. Thank you, three unprecedented yeses!
He yells this last part to the sky, trying to make her laugh, and it’s sort of working but she also feels like crying; thinks she is, in fact, as he cups his head again, like his own shouting has hurt his ears.
But if you’re not ecstatic, Nora? Robin says, lowering his voice once more. Then we can talk about that. Like we talk about everything.
He takes both her hands in his, and Nora can tell from his tone that he thinks he’s done it. Thinks he’s softened what was hard, cleared the clouds of what has felt heavy, between them.
Except we don’t, Nora says. Talk about everything.
Robin blinks.
You wanted to marry me, from day one?
Well, technically day two, Robin says, because I asked you out for a drink first, but you said you’d prefer a croissant, so it was the next morning, when we got pastries and hot chocolate.
You ordered the eighty-five percent. Which surprised me.
And you started talking about the magical properties of cacao beans and then, smooth as anything, moved on to the theoretical difference between writing and drawing, and I knew, right then, that I wanted to marry you.
But, Nora says, not sure what is bothering her so deeply, here – why did you never say so?
A pause then. Like Robin doesn’t understand the question, or thinks he’s already answered it.
Because you didn’t want to, he says.
But this has to be two-way, she says, taking her hand out of his so she can gesture between them. This has to be about what we both want. We’ve been together for nine years, Robin. Nine years, and you never once told me you wanted to get married.
Does that matter?
It does, yes! It really matters!
Because how can they start something she has no idea how to be in, wrapped in white lace and harpist music and served with a hog roast for a family she barely has, when the ones she does have – Robin, looking at her, now, Bren, on her doorstep, then – aren’t even their full, honest selves with her? Nor she, with them?
I want to be with you, Nora, Robin asserts. Wedding or no wedding.
But to the detriment of what you actually want? Nora says. I can’t be that person, Robin! I can’t let you go along with a life that isn’t what you’d choose.
She thinks of Josie, boxed up at home.
Jon, straying, because life with her was not what he’d hoped.
But what I choose is to be with you, Robin repeats, and he seems angry now, just like he was the other night as she says but how can I trust that, now?
Because it’s us! We’re Robin and Nora, aren’t we? Or is this not even about a wedding, he says, and she hears something else in his voice, a shift from anger to fear as he says it’s starting to feel like you’re looking for a reason to get out of this. And like an idiot, I’ve just given you one.
You’re not an idiot, Nora says, reaching for him.
What am I, then? Your fiancé, or just some guy you were killing time with, until the guy you actually wanted came home?
She gasps at this, because she had feared this might get thrown out there but still it gives her whiplash; had he heard what Bren had asked her, last weekend, has he been sitting on that, all this time?
Or just piecing together what he can’t have missed?
Sudden inkling, then, that there is more he’s not telling her, but she doesn’t ask, it is instinct to defend, to say instead that that’s not what this is – she loves him, she does, but he was the one person she thought was straight with her, the one person she could always trust, and suddenly she’s not sure who he is or what he wants and he, too, is looking at her like he feels the same way.
They stare at each other, on the felled tree. Their breathing, out of time.
You said yes, he murmurs.
But you didn’t ask, she says, did you.
Which is the truth that grows between them, as they sit there with the day ending, all around them. Nightfall, now. Their hands growing cold.