7. Chapter Seven
A s I got closer to Seaside, I found myself stopping more and driving slower. The knot in the pit of my stomach tightened as soon as I saw the town’s welcome sign. Never once in all my years spending the summer here had I been this on edge. It wasn’t at all like the excited feeling I got the second summer Jonas and I spent together. The one where I could hardly sit still because it had been months since we’d seen each other. This wasn’t excitement at all. It was dread. I knew these weeks together would make us or break us. And everything we’d been through the last year told me we were heading toward divorce. It was so common for empty nesters to divorce around retirement age it had a name—the gray divorce.
That’s not how our story was supposed to end, though. We were supposed to make it to the stage of life where we sat on our porch and watched our grandchildren play in the yard. It wasn’t the constant travel or the hockey schedule. That had always been part of our lives. But somewhere along the way, we stopped communicating and drifted apart. From inseparable whenever we were both in town to barely speaking when in the same room. I’m not sure when we stopped making each other a priority. If therapy hadn’t fixed it, I wasn’t sure this summer ultimatum could, but I had to try. At least I would know I did everything I could to save our marriage, and I wouldn’t be stuck wondering if I could have done more or if I had tried hard enough.
I pulled into the driveway and parked next to Jonas’s car. After I removed the key from the ignition, I remained in my seat for a few minutes. I didn’t know what I was going to say to him when I saw him. Multiple emotions coursed through me. I couldn’t choose which to focus on, and the mixture felt overwhelming. I was hopeful that his arriving right away meant he wanted to put in the work this summer, but that didn’t erase my anger toward his behavior or make me forget he’d made a decision that greatly impacted our retirement plans and our daughter’s future home. The main thing I’d taken from our time in therapy was it was nearly impossible to fix multiple hurts at once, and I needed to focus my attention on the gushing wound first. Our marriage was hemorrhaging. That required our focus. We could table the house.
I made my way inside and found Jonas in the kitchen shirtless in his Caribou-branded athletic shorts. The counter was covered in appetizers—vegetable tray with ranch, fruit skewers with yogurt, and chips and salsa. “Hi, sweetheart. How was the drive?”
My eyes wandered down my husband’s chest and stomach. It was unfair how he still had an athlete’s body so many years after leaving the ice. I might be angry with him, but that didn’t mean I could completely ignore how sexy it was when he wandered around shirtless. “I’m going to set this bag in a room and then get my suitcases. Then you can tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ll grab your bags from your car and bring them to you. These are just some snacks so we have something to eat while we talk. I want to tell you what I’ve planned.”
I made my way to the bedroom and froze when I saw two things. First, there was a new bookshelf in the primary bedroom and it was filled with wrapped books. Second, Jonas had unpacked his stuff into the closet, and his stack of books and reading glasses on the nightstand told me he was sleeping in here. We hadn’t slept in the same bedroom in well over a year and a half. And I wasn’t starting now. I turned on my heels to choose a different room, but Jonas blocked the doorway. His right hand pressed against the frame as he leaned his body against the other side, blocking my exit path. “This is the first thing I wanted to discuss. I’m done sleeping across the hall from my wife. On our wedding night, I promised you’d fall asleep in my arms every night we were both in the same town. I was gone half the year because of the road schedule. You traveled with the symphony. Starting tonight, we go back to that first night and make good on that promise.”
I exhaled a huff as I stepped backward toward the corner of the bed. When I settled on the edge, I asked. “Any other promises you’re going to make good on from that night?”
He set my suitcases against the wall, then stalked across the room before dropping to his knees in front of me. His hands massaged my thighs as his forehead pressed against mine. “To not go to bed angry, to talk about anything that’s bothering me, and to always kiss you goodnight.”
Those three, plus holding me in his arms, meant he remembered four of the five promises he’d made. Not bad, but I was so angry with him I couldn’t let him off easily. “Not bad, but you forgot my favorite one.”
His eyes closed, and he exhaled quietly. “I’m trying, Annie. I really am. Cut me some slack, please.”
I leaned back, breaking our contact, and scooted across the bed. “No. I’m not the one who hasn’t shown up. I put in the work. I sat in our therapist’s office weekly and then twice a month waiting for you. Sometimes you showed up, but you were only half in. The other times, I did the work without you. So, no. There’s no slack, Jonas. Saving our marriage is going to take more than some snacks on the kitchen counter, a shelf filled with books, and remembering a handful of wedding night promises. Your room is across the hall. Take PJ’s since he won’t be here this summer. This one’s mine. Just because I want to try to save this marriage, it doesn’t mean I’m ready to share my bed with you.”
He scooted from his knees to sit on the bed’s corner. “Annie, please. Try it my way. I’ve thought this through. Give it a week. If you’re miserable, I’ll move across the hall.”
I shifted to sit against the headboard and stretched my legs out. “Tell me your plan. I can’t agree to something I don’t know anything about.”
He took my foot into his hand and massaged my toes, then worked his way up my foot, avoiding the area that always made me squirm. My body melted to his touch, something I hadn’t had in months. “We’re going to spend the summer reliving favorite memories. I want to take us back to the summer we fell in love and were inseparable, spending every available moment together. I have it all planned. I’m going to show you that I can make us a priority, and each day, we’ll sit on our porch or at the table and have dinner. You can choose one hard topic we need to work through, and we’ll discuss it. No running away from the hard conversation.” He switched the massage to my other foot. “What do you say? Are you in?”
His plan sounded perfect. It was everything I wanted—time together, rebuilding our relationship, and having the conversations we’d avoided. This was the work we were supposed to do in therapy. “Let me make sure I understand. You are going to plan something for us each day, and then at dinner, we can work through anything of my choosing?”
“Yes.”
“I love everything about this except one thing. I can’t start in the same room. This is going to be emotionally exhausting, and we will need space to decompress or take a break. You take PJ’s room. I’ll take Amber’s. We spend at least the first week in those rooms. Once we’re ready to share a room again, we move in here and wait for the other to join us. No pressure or guilt about not being ready at the same time. Do you accept the compromise?”
He folded forward and pressed his lips to my forehead. “It’s a plan. I’ll move my stuff now. You get settled in Amber’s room. Then meet me on the porch. I’d love to spend the first night hearing about Ashland, if that’s okay. We can start the dinner conversations tomorrow.”
The forehead touch, foot massage, and leg squeeze were the most physical touch we had had in months. For someone whose love language was equal parts quality time and physical touch, our lack of connection in terms of both time together and physical space had been torturous. I linked my arms over his shoulder and gave him a quick squeeze. “Sounds great. Thanks for being here when I arrived. I didn’t think you’d beat me to Seaside. I figured camp would get you first, and you’d squeeze in a few extra days over the holiday before returning to camp.”
His arms tightened around me. “What camp?” As his lips slid down my neck, his words murmured against my skin. “I’m right where I need to be. Where I should have been more.”
When he said things like that, it made it hard to stand my ground that I wasn’t ready to share a room with him. It also gave me hope that we hadn’t completely lost ‘us’ and that it wasn’t too late to get back to what we once had. I knew relationships changed with time and didn’t expect to return to the young adults who couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The ones who would plan time together when their schedules aligned and say they’d do things like sightseeing or go to a movie or play, but would end up never leaving bed. Our newlywed stage had been the same. Even the first few years of our marriage. But then, as our careers changed paths and we added parenthood to our responsibilities, it was different. Not better or worse, just different. But I never expected to go months without my husband’s touch. And now it’s been over a year. The saddest part about that was I didn’t think he realized.