Story # 4.2

Thinking it was okay to let him sleep a little longer, Teri moved to get up and leave. But feeling him stir behind her she quickly turned back around to see him slowly opening his eyes.

She couldn’t help but worry. He looked less exhausted than he had the last couple of days, but even now, even in his sleep he didn’t seem completely relaxed. As if something was bothering him even now.

“Good morning,” she said, trying to shake the worry off. Better not to let him see it.

“Is it still morning,” he answered with a question.

“Barely. You slept like a stone.”

She had heard him come in, late, again, very late. But his footsteps in the hallway had told her how exhausted he had been so she had pretended to be asleep and he had silently gotten changed and crawled into bed next to her, clearly asleep only seconds later.

“Yeah, I was really tired,” he said as if to confirm her thoughts.

“But you’re off today, right?” she asked before reminding herself not to bring the subject of his work up now. It was still somewhat of a sore spot.

“Yeah.”

She smothered a relieved sigh but couldn’t help the smile forming on her face.

“Great. Now, I made you breakfast. Maybe we could go somewhere later,” she announced. She had spent some time this morning to think of places they could go and stuff they could do together. Finally they would do things together again. “You want to take a shower first?” she asked absentmindedly, about to make her way to the kitchen.

“No,” he said, and she could tell by the tone of his voice that there was something on his mind. “Teri. There’s something…we need to talk about.”

Don’t you dare telling me now you got to go away for work again, she thought, again doing her best though not to let her fears show on her face. “Okay.” She had always hated it when he had to leave, sometimes for days, sometimes weeks. She knew it would happen again sooner or later but she wasn’t sure if she could deal with it just now.

“After you…,” he started and it wasn’t hard to figure out what he had meant to say although he didn’t finish the sentence. After I asked you to move out, she thought guilt-stricken. There had been moments when she hadn’t been able to believe she had really done it. But now, in retrospective, it had been the right decision. Things would never have changed otherwise. Or even worse – they would have changed, but without the happy end they had now.

“When I had moved out,” he started over again, “I…I was seeing someone.”

And just like that the comforting thought of having made the right decision was gone. Why did I ever let him go? Why did I make him go? She knew this had been likely to happen, had known it all along. Look at him – he’s not the man to stay alone. She had seen the looks on other women’s faces.

“I can’t say that surprises me,” she sighed, glad her voice wasn’t failing her. “I was afraid something like that was going to happen. I was hoping it wouldn’t but, yeah, I knew it could happen.”

“I’m so sorry, Teri. I never wanted any of this to happen,” he almost whispered, and she could hear he really was. She struggled for a second. The thought of him being with someone else – it was too much but she could hardly blame him now, could she?

“Me neither, Jack,” she sighed instead. They would get over this as well. Given time, she would get over this as well. “It wasn’t what I imagined when I married you or when we had Kim.” Her gaze strayed to the photographs as her mind traveled back to her wedding day and then the day in the hospital, the first time she had held Kimberly in her arms, her daughter, so little and so beautiful. Jack had been sitting by her side, his eyes beaming with joy as well. “I knew we were going to run into trouble eventually, every couple does. But I would never have thought it would come this far.” She really hadn’t. But that’s over now. She smiled.

“But we pulled through, Jack. I mean, we’re still here. Or again. We made it.”They had hit bottom but they hadn’t drowned.

“Look, Teri,” Jack found his speech back. “This person I was seeing…she…”

I don’t want to know! was all she could think. I really don’t want to know. It was hard enough as things were.

“Jack,” she quickly cut him off, “it’s okay. I mean, I’m not thrilled about it, but I also realize that I was the one who asked you to leave. And whatever you did during that time – it doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past. The only thing that matters is what we do now, from this point on.” She wished she was as sure and as confident as she sounded, but she could only hope she would be over time. For now, the best she could to was to ignore it. She didn’t want to know. “We’re a family again now,” she smiled reassuringly, to him and to herself. “I can’t tell you how miserable I was when you were gone, how many times I wanted to pick up the phone and ask you to come back.” One day it had been so bad she had hidden the phone. “Or how happy I am now that you are.” She looked at the cup of coffee she was still holding in her hands – she was holding on to in her lap, just like she was holding on to her love for Jack. Because it was the only thing that she was sure of, that she had always been sure of. Even when she had asked him to move, when she had sent him away, she had never stopped loving him. And when he had been gone – the house had suddenly seemed so big, her life suddenly so empty. Nothing had been sure anymore, nothing had felt safe anymore. She had felt like she was just drifting around, without a destination, without a purpose. Kim had been there, of course, but since her daughter was blaming her for Jack leaving she hadn’t been much of a comfort.

“I know there’s still a lot of stuff we need to deal with,” she admitted, looking up again. “Things I need to accept, things you need to reconsider.” And it wouldn’t get any easier, there were still the same problems they had been facing when they had separated. Or they hadn’t been facing really. They had avoided them by separating. “But, Jack, I know we can do it.” They had to. “I know it will work out.” It had to. “Because I won’t let anything come between us again.” She couldn’t lose him again. “I won’t let anything split up this family again.” She couldn’t lose the one thing that gave her life stability and meaning.

He didn’t say anything. Just stared at her, looking so… Guilty? Sad? Why was he sad? She could understand the guilt-part and she promised herself right that moment to free him of it as soon as she was up to it, but why the sadness?

“Kim’s happy too,” she kept talking, emphasizing the ‘happy’ as if to remind him that he was supposed to be too. “She sure has her own way of showing it but I know she is. She missed you, Jack.”

She saw him blink and wondered what was going through his mind. She couldn’t really read the expression on his face. She had always been able to read him, hadn’t she? She knew there were a lot of things he didn’t talk about, couldn’t, but at least she had always been able to tell what they did to him, how they made him feel, even when she didn’t understand how or why.

“Just like I missed you,” she added, suddenly almost panicking because he still hadn’t responded in any way. But she didn’t let it show. She couldn’t. Why she didn’t know. It felt strange, though, as if she was acting. When had she started to act around Jack?

“Didn’t you miss us too?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking any longer then. She needed an answer now. Reassurance. Something. She knew she seemed calm and all happy on the outside, though she didn’t know why she was suddenly so good at hiding her true feelings.

“Of course I did,” she finally heard him say. “Of course I missed you.”

Relief. At first. But why wasn’t he looking at her? If he had missed them too, if everything was fine, then why couldn’t he look at her?

“Then what is it?”

“It’s…” he stammered, and she saw him blink once more, as if he was snapping out of something or waking up for a second time. “I’m just not good at this,” he mumbled.

And she smiled. I’m just not good at this. Of course you’re not good at this, Jack. Talking about his feelings had never been his strongest side. That was all. That was why she had worried so much? Silly.

“I’m happy too,” he said, his blue eyes looking at her. “And you’re right – it will work out.” And something, not so much what he was saying, but something in his voice, something in his gaze, there was just something about him that always made her feel secure. God, she had missed him so much. “We will make it work.”