Chapter Thirty
Thirty
“I JUST NEED TO GRAB MY COMPUTER FROM THE OFFICE and then we can go to lunch,” Emma explained to her parents.
They were currently being icy with each other in the front seat of Debbie’s Volvo. Things had been increasingly tense since Alan stormed off at the ice cream shop a few weeks ago—a failed attempt at getting his wife’s attention. Debbie seemed fed up with Alan and Alan was clearly wounded by Debbie’s distance. They hadn’t played a single game of cribbage in weeks, breaking a daily tradition Emma had grown accustomed to since moving back home. Something had to change, and it had to change fast.
Plus, focusing on someone else’s relationship problems always made Emma feel better and more in control of her own life. But that was just a bonus.
“Do you want to come in with me? We got some new artwork I think you’d like,” Emma fibbed.
“Sure,” Debbie said as Alan unbuckled his seat belt next to her. They all climbed out and followed Emma through the door into the waiting room.
“It’s right through here,” Emma lied again as she directed her parents into her shared office.
Imani looked up from her seat in the therapist chair and smiled.
“Imani, hi,” Debbie exclaimed, always happy to see her daughter’s closest friend. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”
“Not at all. I was actually waiting for you.”
Alan and Debbie looked at Emma in confusion. She gestured for them to sit on the couch. They reluctantly obliged.
“What’s going on?” Alan asked. “I thought we were going to Olive Garden.”
“I know you did,” Emma replied as she perched herself on the arm of Imani’s chair. “And I’m sorry for the misdirect but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m really worried about you two.”
“You’re worried about us ? Why?” Debbie asked, completely lost.
“Because you aren’t prioritizing each other anymore. Ever since Dad retired, your dynamic has been off, but neither one of you wants to properly address it.”
“Oh, honey,” Debbie replied, “I think you’re overreacting. We’ve been married for a very long time. There are always bumps in the road but it’s nothing to worry about. Right, Alan?”
Instead of answering, Alan shrugged.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Debbie demanded, already annoyed and reverting to defensive mode. Alan wasn’t providing the backup she’d expected.
“I don’t know. This feels…different. Like you can’t stand to be around me.”
“Oh my god, just because I don’t want you breathing down my neck all day doesn’t mean I can’t stand to be around you.”
“When you put it like that, I guess I have nothing to worry about,” Alan replied sarcastically.
Debbie opened her mouth to retort but Emma put up a hand to stop her. “Before you keep going, I am going to excuse myself and turn it over to Imani to help facilitate your discussion.”
“What?” Alan and Debbie shouted in unison.
“It’s not ethical for me to run a session with my own parents.”
“It’s also not ethical for me to run a session with my best friend’s parents,” Imani clarified. “So, I need to make it extremely clear that I am not here as a therapist and you are not here as my clients. We are just three people who are going to have a constructive conversation that no one will ever mention to my licensing board.”
“This is ridiculous,” Debbie protested. “I’m sorry Emma roped you into this, Imani, but we are perfectly capable of resolving things by ourselves. Not that there is anything we even need to resolve in the first place.”
“Why don’t we just give it a try, Debbie?” Alan asked gent-ly. “I know you think therapy isn’t for you but how can you know that when you’ve refused to try?”
Emma restrained herself from giving her father a fist bump. She had tried to relay the exact same argument to her mother countless times only to be stonewalled. Debbie loved the idea of therapy—but only for other people.
“Because I know I don’t want to talk about myself with a total stranger,” Debbie countered. “It’s not in my nature to share on command.”
“I’m not going to make you share anything you don’t want to,” Imani said kindly. “I’m just here to be a neutral third party if the two of you get stuck or want another perspective. We can always give it a try and if you don’t feel like it helped, Emma will do your laundry for a month.”
Emma shot Imani a look. It was the first she was hearing of this plan, but she had to admit it was a good one. “I’ll even iron your T-shirts.”
Alan playfully poked his wife in the arm. “You’ve got to admit, that is a good deal.”
Debbie sighed and turned to her husband. “How important is this to you? On a scale of one to ten?”
“Nine-point-five.”
“Wow. Okay.” She turned to Imani. “I’ll give you one hour.”
Emma stood up, thrilled that this had somehow worked out. “I’ll come back then.” Her parents nodded, one more cheerfully than the other.
Emma knew it was frowned upon to force someone into therapy—especially under false pretenses. It was also extremely unlikely that anything would be solved in a single session. But none of that mattered since all Emma really wanted was for her parents to stop avoiding their issues and start talking. They had somehow made it forty years without fully understanding the inner workings of each other’s brains. It was time to learn.
***
“Is there anything I’m not doing that you wish I would do?”
Matt looked at Emma strangely from behind the wheel of his car. They were on their way to the final tasting at their wedding venue, a gorgeous hotel and event space in Malibu called Calamigos Ranch. When Emma and Ryan had first visited the spot a little over a year earlier, they had been blown away by the big trees and chic rustic decor. They’d even fantasized about coming back to the resort each year on their anniversary. Emma, who hadn’t been back in person since, hoped it would somehow feel just as special with Matt—or at least not super uncomfortable.
“What do you mean?”
“All this stuff with my parents has just reinforced how different people can be. You might need things that haven’t even occurred to me. I thought I’d ask.”
Her parents’ off-the-books session with Imani had been more successful than anyone could have expected. Debbie seemed to finally understand that even though it wasn’t true, Alan saw her need for alone time as a painful personal attack. And Alan started to come around to the idea that it wasn’t helpful to take all of Debbie’s actions so personally. Nothing was said that hadn’t been said before, but something about saying it in front of someone else, in a neutral territory, made it easier to listen. Funny how that worked. They’d even agreed to see another therapist Emma knew from grad school for a few more sessions as they worked the kinks out. It was a therapy success story, and it made Emma want to flex her own communication skills with Matt.
They also hadn’t said anything to each other in twenty minutes and Emma was getting pretty bored. Matt was a wonderful, kind, incredibly good-looking man. But he wasn’t much of a talker.
“Huh,” Matt said. “I can’t think of anything. What about you?”
“Oh, come on. I can’t be the only one to say something. That’s not fair,” Emma teased.
“So you do have something?”
“Nothing huge or anything.”
“What is it?”
Emma debated if she should share or not. On the one hand, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. On the other, she needed to learn how to be more honest with Matt without fearing rejection.
“I guess sometimes I worry that we are going to run out of things to say to each other.”
Matt laughed until he realized she wasn’t joking. “Why would we run out of things to say?”
“Because it happens sometimes. Haven’t you ever seen two old people at a restaurant eating their entire meal in silence? That is my greatest fear.”
“Really? I’ve always thought it was nice. They’re so comfortable with each other that they don’t even have to talk.”
“But I love to talk. It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
“Then we can talk.”
“What if we run out of stuff to talk about ? What will we do then? People can die from boredom, you know.”
“Is that true?”
“Not really. But it isn’t good for you.” Emma wasn’t sure why she was getting so worked up. This was supposed to be a productive conversation, not a triggering one.
“Is this something you’ve always worried about or is it something you’re just worried about with me?”
“I’ve always worried about it. But I’ve also never dated someone who would want to have a silent dinner. I guess that scares me a little.”
“Hmm,” Matt said with an unreadable look on his face.
“What?”
“I guess it scares me that you view silence as such a bad thing. I find it peaceful. Sometimes Kelly and I would just sit out on our porch and watch the sunset without saying a word.”
That picturesque scene was quite literally Emma’s nightmare. She shuddered at the thought of being left to her own thoughts for thirty-two to thirty-seven minutes, depending on her location and the time of year.
“Do you think I talk too much?” Emma asked, even though she knew nobody should ever ask a question they don’t want the answer to.
“Not too much. Just a lot.” Matt quickly glanced at her to make sure he wasn’t in trouble. “I really don’t mind though. Unless I’m trying to work or something.”
Emma suddenly felt like her seat belt was strangling her. She pulled at it anxiously, only for the stiff fabric to remain in place, sucking the life out of her as a rush of worry took over her brain. Was she unintentionally setting herself up for a lifetime of fear that her husband was just tolerating her whenever she opened her mouth? Because given her chatterbox personality, that seemed like a big issue.
“Did Kelly not talk a lot?”
“No, she talked. It was just different.”
“Different as in better?”
“Why are you asking that? Are you trying to start a fight?”
“No. I’m trying to figure out if we’re forcing something that shouldn’t be forced.”
As the words left Emma’s mouth, she knew there was no turning back. She had said the scary thing—the thing they made sure to never acknowledge or mention—out loud. They would either come out of this conversation stronger than ever or not together at all.
“Do you think we’re forcing it?” Matt asked with concern.
“Please just answer the question,” Emma replied, exasperated.
Matt sighed. “I think we’re still in the figuring-each-other-out phase. But that doesn’t mean we’re forcing it.”
“How long did it take for you to figure Kelly out?”
“That was…”
“Different?”
“Yeah. We’re both from the Midwest. We both have big families. It’s like I already knew her or something.”
Emma nodded; she had recently felt the same way. About someone else.
From the moment she’d met Will she’d been able to be her full self. She’d cracked jokes. She’d spoken her mind. She felt understood in a way that shouldn’t be rare but always was. There was no forcing it when she and Will were together. Someone was always talking—often both of them at the same time.
And just like that, a light bulb exploded in her head.
“I think you should pull over.”
“What?”
“I think you should pull over.”
“I can’t. We’re halfway up a mountain.” Matt made a good point. They had left the Pacific Coast Highway behind and were now weaving their way up Kanan Dume Rd. It wasn’t a road for the faint of heart.
“Up there. You can pull over there.” Emma pointed to a scenic overlook ahead.
“That’s on the other side of the road.”
“Just do a U-turn.”
“Are you serious—”
“Quick, turn now! No one is coming,” Emma screamed, causing Matt to panic and swing the car around. They came to a screeching halt dangerously close to the edge.
“That was not okay!” Matt exclaimed in the closest thing to a yell Emma had ever heard from him. “We could have died.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Emma scrambled out of the car.
“What are you doing?” Matt demanded, climbing out after her. They stood facing each other over his Porsche Panamera. “What the hell is going on? Are you having some sort of—”
“Psychotic break? No. I don’t think so. But I was starting to have a full-blown anxiety attack until I realized we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to get married.”
Matt’s confusion quickly turned to hurt. “Where is this coming from? Because I like to watch sunsets and not talk all the time? Or did Kelly say something the other night that turned you off?”
Emma shook her head. When Matt had shut down their conversation about Kelly’s late-night visit, Emma had tried to convince herself it was because Kelly no longer meant anything to him. But now, in light of her own epiphany, it was glaringly obvious.
The real reason Matt couldn’t talk about Kelly was because she still meant too much to him.
“Kelly didn’t say anything bad. She’s still in love with you and I don’t want to be the reason you two aren’t together.”
“You aren’t. I was already getting divorced when we met.”
“I know, but that was a mistake. You shouldn’t throw away what you and Kelly have over one mistake.”
“She cheated on me.”
“One time, under duress! I’d bet good money she’d never do it again.”
Matt shook his head in frustration. “This doesn’t make any sense. I thought your whole thing was that there is no such thing as soulmates, and we can be happy with a bunch of different people. Do you not agree with that anymore?”
“No, I do.”
“Then why do you keep acting like Kelly is the only person for me when I—” Matt stopped himself.
“When you what?”
“I was going to say ‘when I love you’ but I realized we haven’t said that to each other yet.”
“Exactly.” Emma was glad that Matt had gotten to the heart of their issues himself, even if he hadn’t meant to. “ Why haven’t we said it yet? We’re engaged and we’ve been together for a few months. Most regular couples would have already said it at this point.”
Matt shrugged. “Nothing about us has been regular.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why it’s been so easy for us to wait until marriage to have sex. Shouldn’t we want to rip each other’s clothes off? Have you even thought about how weird that is?”
“If sex is your big problem, we can have sex right now. The windows are tinted. I can lower the seats down. Just get in.”
“Matt,” Emma said gently. “You know that won’t solve anything. The whole point of Operation: Save My Date was that if two people have a certain level of chemistry and compatibility they can make a marriage work even if they don’t know each other for a long time. But what if we don’t have enough chemistry or compatibility?”
Matt hung his head, showing his first sign of defeat. “I really wanted this to work.”
“Believe me, I did too. And so did my book editor.”
Matt chuckled as he wiped his eyes. “Maybe I messed things up by not letting us sleep together. That could have prevented us from getting closer.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. We tried our best, but you need a spark to start a flame. And it just wasn’t there.”
Matt nodded. It was a relief to know that underneath all his certainty, he had felt the same lack of connection. Perhaps if neither of them had properly been in love before they would have thought what they had together was enough. But they each knew what it was like to be fully tethered, in your heart and in your mind, to another person—and this wasn’t it.
“What now?” Matt asked gently.
“I think you should get in your car and you go find Kelly.”
Matt barked out a laugh. It was maybe the loudest one she’d heard from him yet.
“I can’t just show up and ask for my ex-wife back. We’re divorced, remember?”
“Why not? I know you think you’ve moved on, but as someone who has spent a lot of time with you recently, I can assure you you have not.” Emma watched as Matt’s mind attempted to reject this uncomfortable news. She needed to help him see the truth. “You talk about Kelly all the time, Matt. It’s like she’s still living in your head with you. Like you never let her go. And that’s okay because she clearly never let you go either.”
Matt sighed, his resolve to forget the past weakening. “I’ve never been divorced before. I didn’t know how much it was supposed to hurt. Or how hard it should be to move on.” He looked at Emma, his face painfully hopeful. As if he couldn’t sustain another blow but was somehow still willing to fight. “You really think Kelly and I could make it work this time?”
“In my professional opinion, you can’t guarantee anything when it comes to love,” Emma replied truthfully. “But in my personal opinion, yes. Absolutely.”
Matt rubbed his face, still slightly in shock. “This is insane.”
“I think you mean bananas . Insane is derogatory for people with mental illness.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I should have told you that a while ago, but I was too busy forcing things.” They smiled at each other.
“Let me drive you home.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to call an Uber. There’s somewhere else I need to go first.”
Matt raised his eyebrows.
“If it works out, I’ll fill you in.”
“Okay,” Matt replied as he climbed back into the driver’s seat.
Emma walked around the car to say a proper goodbye. “I’m sorry I dragged you into all of this.”
Matt reached out and took Emma’s hand. He gave it one sweet kiss before letting it go. “Don’t apologize. Unless Kelly kicks me out.”
Emma laughed. “I highly doubt that will happen.”
Matt crossed his fingers and closed the door. She watched as he drove off down the road. In less than six months, she’d lost another fiancé.
Except this time, Emma knew exactly what to do about it.