Heart of the Matter - Emily Giffin [59]
17
Tessa
Tess?” Nick says that night when he finally comes to bed just after one in the morning. His voice is tender, almost a whisper, and I feel a rush of relief to hear him say my name like this.
“Yes,” I whisper back, realizing that we’ve just made a rhyme.
He takes several deep breaths, as if collecting himself or deciding what to say, and it occurs to me to fill the silence with a question about what is going on in his head. But I force myself to wait, sensing that his next words will be telling ones.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says, pulling me close to him, wrapping his arms around me. Even without the hug, I can tell he means it this time. Unlike his apology for being late, there is nothing obligatory or automatic in his voice now.
“Sorry for what?” I breathe, my eyes still closed. It is ordinarily a passive-aggressive question, but tonight it cornes from a sincere place. I really want to know.
“I’m sorry for what I said. It’s not true.” He takes several more deep breaths, exhaling through his nose, and then says, “You’re a great mother. A great wife.”
He kisses my neck, just under my ear, and hugs me harder, all of his body now against mine. It has always been his way of making up—action over words—and although I’ve criticized and resisted this approach in the past, tonight I don’t mind. Instead, I push back against him, doing my best to believe him, dismiss the brewing doubts about our relationship. I tell myself that Nick has always been a bit of a dirty fighter, quick with cutting words that he later regrets and doesn’t really mean. Then again, I wonder if there isn’t always a grain of truth in them, somewhere.
“Then why did you say it?” I whisper, between his kisses and some of my own. “Why did you say things aren’t working?”
It occurs to me that the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I can be a great wife and mother—and things could still be broken. Or slowly breaking.
“I don’t know . . . I just get frustrated sometimes,” he says as he tugs down my sweatpants with rapidly building urgency.
I try to resist him, if only to finish our conversation, but feel myself caving to the overwhelming physical pull to him. The need for him. It is the way I felt in the beginning, when we’d rush home from school to be together, making love two or three times in a night. A way I haven’t felt in a long time.
“I want you to be happy,” Nick says.
“I am happy.”
“Then don’t look for problems.”
“ I don t.”
“Sometimes you do.”
I consider this, consider all the ways I could’ve greeted him differently tonight. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I do manufacture trouble, like the housewives I once criticized for drumming up drama in order to alleviate the monotony of their days. Maybe there is a void in my life, one that I’m relying on him to fill. Maybe he really did simply have a craving for Italian food tonight.
“C’mon, Tess. Make up with me,” he says, sliding off his pajama bottoms, pulling up my T-shirt, but not bothering to take it off. He kisses me hard on the mouth as he moves inside me, offering penance. I kiss him back just as urgently, my heart beating fast, my legs wrapping tight around him. All the while, I tell myself that I’m doing it because I love him. Not because I want to prove anything to him.
Yet, moments later, after I let go, and feel him doing the same, I hear myself whispering, See, Nick? See that? It’s working. It’s working.
18
Valerie
Valerie watches Charlie intently coloring inside the lines of a jack-o’-lantern, alternating between an orange crayon for the pumpkin and a green for the stern, using careful, steady strokes. It is a boring project for a child his age, requiring no creativity whatsoever, but Charlie seems to understand that it is good for his hand and takes the assignment from his occupational therapist seriously.
She says his name as he draws a black cat in the background, exaggerating