by Nina Levine
King.
“I gave Bourne your message,” I say.
Mass explosions flash across the screens on the wall as King says, “Thank fuck this is over.”
I hear his exhaustion; I feel it, too.
This battle has raged on for long enough.
“Yeah, brother. I couldn’t agree more. We’ve got one more ahead of us, though.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“When we get to hell, we’re dancing together. We need our time with the Bourne brothers.”
40
Birdie
* * *
“What about putt putt?” I say as I smooth balm over Winter’s beard early on the Saturday after he came home from Brisbane. We’ve had nearly a whole week of starting our days like this. Well, that is, after he wakes me up with his mouth to my pussy exactly how he promised on Christmas day.
He groans and takes hold of my hips. “You know I hate mini golf. Why do you want to torture me with it, angel?”
I smile, loving the knowledge that he would play it with me if I pushed him to. I won’t, but it makes me feel loved knowing he’d do it. “It was just an idea. What do you want to do?”
We’re figuring out what we’re going to do on our date this afternoon. Our first real date in forever. I’m so excited for this time with him that I wouldn’t care if we went to the airport and watched planes take off. I’ve heard that’s a thing for some people. It sounds boring as hell to me, but if I did it with my husband, it would be a great afternoon.
Asking Winter what he wants to do on a date is like asking him the hardest question in the world. If he had his way, our dates would all take place in our bed. He surprises me, though, when he says, “How about we take in some live music? I saw there’s a band playing at the pub this afternoon.”
“Ooh, yes! We could have some drinks, and you can dance with me.” I grin. “I’ll allow that.”
He chuckles. “I’m clearly a lucky bastard if you’ll allow me to dance with you.”
I loop my arms around his neck. “You really are. Don’t you forget that.”
My phone rings and I glance at it on the vanity as Winter lets me go and says, “We’ve got ten minutes before we have to leave.”
I grab my phone, eager to talk to my bestie. “So that means we’ve actually got twenty minutes, right?”
“Ten minutes. After that, I’m confiscating the phone.”
“You know I like bossy Winter. Maybe I’ll talk for eleven minutes.”
“Fuck,” he swears and brushes his lips over mine before leaving me.
I answer the call, smiling at Cleo through the phone. “Babe, tell me how you went! Tell me everything!” Cleo and Mark went to their first salsa dance class last night, and I’ve been hanging out to hear how it went. I’m thinking Winter and I should find a class, too.
“Let’s just say salsa is not the dance for my husband.”
“Oh no. He didn’t love it?”
“He tried, but it’s a no from me. Like, a big, fat no in all shouty caps. At one point, I thought I was going to trip over his feet that he didn’t have in the right place.”
I laugh at the way she describes the experience. “Well, at least you gave it a go. What’s next on the list?” Cleo has a list of things she wants them to do together. So far everything they’ve tried has been a bust, either because one of them was bored or one of them didn’t love it.
“Well, we’ve crossed out ballroom dancing, Crossfit, rowing, archery, tennis, rock climbing, and now salsa. I think we’re ready to take binge drinking back up and call it a day.”
“Might be hard with a kid and all.”
“Why do you have to shoot down all my good ideas? So, tell me, are you guys ready for your counselling session this morning?”
It’s our first one. Winter agreed to it after he got home from Brisbane. I’d been ready for a big discussion about it, thinking he wouldn’t be keen, but he said yes straight away.
“I don’t know if ready is the right word, but we’re doing it. I’m ready for what it will hopefully do for us.”
Since he’s been home, we’ve only briefly talked about the hard stuff; I haven’t wanted to push us too fast. I hope he’ll be okay with the therapy session today. My heart is already hurting for him. I’ve been slowly working through my grief and hurt, so I kinda know what to expect. I’m not sure Winter is aware of just how much there is to be unpacked.
“I’m so proud of you guys. Knowing everything you’ve been through, and seeing you still standing together and admitting you need help; it’s not every couple who fights for their love like you do.”
“Aww, you’re making me all squishy. Thank you for saying that.” I check the time. “Okay, I better go. It’s almost time for Winter to come looking for me.”
“I love you, Birdie.”
I smile. “I love you, too.”
She waves her hands at me through the screen. “Go. And know I’m thinking of you.”
I leave the bedroom in search of Winter, thinking about how important it is to know someone’s thinking of you. I don’t think I realised just how important until last year. It makes me think of Maddox, so I send him a quick text.
* * *
Me: Did you recover from NYE yet?
* * *
It was New Year’s two days ago and I haven’t heard from him since. He had a party to go to, so my guess is he had a big night.
* * *
Maddox: Nothing to recover from. Didn’t go.
Me: Why not? What’s going on?
* * *
I run into Winter as I send my last text.
“You ready?” he asks.
I look up at him. “I think something’s wrong with Maddox.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Gut feeling.”
He grabs his keys and phone. Jerking his chin at the garage, he says, “We need to go.”
“I’m just gonna ring Maddox and check in with him.”
He places his hand to the small of my back. “You can do that in the car.”
I let him guide me out to the car while I call Maddox. When he doesn’t answer, I leave a message, “Hey Maddox, just checking in on you. Are you okay? I’m getting the impression you’re not. Call me. Let me know.”
I get in the car and Winter closes my door. I watch as he rounds the car and gets in the driver’s seat. When he drops the keys in the console, I wrap my hand around his forearm and say, “I love you.”
He turns his head to look at me. I can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I know exactly what they look like. Those eyes are part of my soul after all these years of him watching me with them. “I love you, too, angel. You good?”
I smile and lean across to kiss him. “Yeah, I’m good. I’ve got you.”
“Fuck,” he rasps and cups my cheek before kissing me again. He takes his time with it, to the point where I wonder if he’s planning on ever stopping. When he does drag his mouth from mine, he says, “You’ve always fucking got me, baby.”
Still smiling, because my belly is a mess of butterflies after that kiss, I say, “I think we might be late now, and it won’t be my fault.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, you were the one who initiated that kiss, so it’s your fault.”
He kicks over the engine. “I only started it because how the fuck could I not, so technically it’s your fault.”
I thread my fingers through his hair at he nape of his neck and laugh at him while he reverses out of the garage.
“Maddox didn’t answer?” he asks as we drive to our therapy session.
“No. And he didn’t reply to my text. I hope he’s okay.”
“He’s probably with his mates.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I change the subject, wanting to keep this morning for us. I’ll think about Maddox after our session. “What are your thoughts on salsa dancing?”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
He eyes me. “I’m thinking my dick’s gonna be in your mouth a fuckuva lot more if I have to take that class.”
My face breaks out in a huge grin. “I accept.”
“Fuck.”
“I’ll find us a class.”
His phone rings and he puts it on speaker in the car. “What’s up, Memphis?”
“Hi, Memphis,” I say.
“Hey, Birdie. Winter, quick question: How many sausages do you want me to pick up for the barbecue tomorrow?”
“I’ve got no fucking idea,” Winter says. Glancing at me, he says, “How many?”
“Get a hundred,” I say. “We’re better off having too many than not enough. And you guys will eat them during the week if there’s any left over.”
“Gotcha. Thanks,” Memphis says. “Anything else you want picked up, Pres?”
Winter looks at me. “Do we need anything else?”
Winter’s holding a club barbecue tomorrow. It’s to celebrate the club battle being over, but mostly, he just wants to bring everyone together for some fun. There hasn’t been a lot of that for a while.
“No,” I say to Memphis, “we don’t need anything else. I picked everything else up already. Oh wait, can you get some plastic forks. I don’t think we have any left from the last barbecue.”
“I’m on it,” he says. “See you guys tomorrow.”
“Memphis,” Winter says, “make sure the kitchen’s clean for the morning.”
Memphis laughs. “Thorn’s already got that sorted, brother. No one’s fucking game to mess it up anymore.”
When Winter ends the call, I say, “I love your guys.”
He places his hand on my thigh. “I think the feeling’s mutual, angel. You look after them too well.”
Five minutes later, we pull into a car park and make our way into the therapist’s office. We wait for fifteen minutes, during which Winter appears a little on edge.
I glance at him. “You okay, baby?”
He nods, his body rigid. “Yeah. You?”
I join our hands. “We’re in this together. Just remember that, okay?”
He opens his mouth to speak, but the therapist calls us in.
I follow Winter in and take a seat next to him on the couch across from the therapist.
She introduces herself—Claire—and then gives us a rundown of how the session will work. She then looks between us and says, “So, why don’t we start with you telling me why you’re here.”
Winter stretches his arm out behind me, across the couch, and says, “Birdie miscarried last year, after we’d done seven years of IVF, and just before that, my brother died. So you could say we’ve got some stuff to talk about.”
I stare at him, happy he took the lead. It’s not that I didn’t want to; I just hoped he’d contribute equally to this session, and it looks promising after that.
Claire’s kind eyes make me feel comfortable to share our story with her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “Do you have a preference for what you’d like to talk about first?”
Winter looks at me, waiting for my response on this one. He takes my hand and holds it on his leg.
I smile at him and then answer Claire. “I honestly don’t know where to start. It’s been such a mess of emotions for eight years. We prepared for IVF for one year and then did ten cycles over the next seven. I miscarried three times, and that was after previously having two ectopic pregnancies and losing both my tubes. The reason I wanted to come in and talk to you is because after I miscarried this last time, and we said that was the end of IVF, we both threw ourselves into work and drifted apart from each other. We avoided talking about it. I mean, after the initial disappointment and anger that we shared. And on top of that, we were grieving Winter’s brother’s death. I don’t think we grieved any of it properly; I’m hoping you can help us figure out how to do that.”
“That’s a good place to start, Birdie,” Claire says. Then to Winter, she says, “Do you feel the same way?”
He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “I know we got busy with work and didn’t have a lot of time to talk about stuff, but I don’t know we avoided talking about it. We’d already spent seven years talking about it. There wasn’t much else to say once it was all done.”
“We talked about IVF for all those years, yes,” I say to Winter, “but we didn’t really ever talk about the emotional fallout of reaching the end of the road.”
He looks at me. “I thought that was a given.”
I frown. “What was a given?”
“The way we both felt about the end of the road. It wasn’t a happy fucking feeling, and I just thought we both felt the same.”
“We did. I guess I just got to a point where I wanted to talk about it with you and I felt like you shut down on me every time I tried. And about Max, too.”
“That was because I was busy, not because I didn’t want to talk.”
I don’t want to get into an argument with him over this, but I do want him to face his avoidance of dealing with his pain.
Shifting to face him, I pull his hand onto my leg and hold it tightly. “Okay, let’s talk about it now. Tell me how you feel about us never being able to have a child of our own.”
Winter’s shoulders are stone, as is his face. I don’t want to see him break. God, how I don’t want to see that. But I think it might be the thing he needs in order for us to move forward together. “I’m disappointed, but—”
I shake my head. “No. That word doesn’t even begin to describe it. Dig deeper. Tell me how you feel it in here”—I place my hand to his chest—“and whether it stops your breaths from coming some moments. Tell me if you wake in the middle of the night feeling like there’s a big, gaping hole in your life that you know will never be filled.” I push him harder as my voice cracks. As my tears threaten. “Talk to me about how you wonder if we’d just done something differently, we’d have a baby today. Maybe if I’d focussed more on being less stressed, we’d have a baby or maybe if—”
“Stop.” It’s one word, and it’s spoken low. He doesn’t raise his voice, but holy hell if that one word isn’t so black it darkens the room. He works his jaw and I swear I see the first fracture hit his heart. “You did nothing wrong. Fucking nothing. I won’t sit here and listen to you say that. And as for how I feel in here”—he pounds his chest—“I feel like I’ve scraped my soul from the inside fucking out and given it over ten times. Watching you go through every cycle was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in life, and then watching you lose our child, knowing there would be no more chances for another, it fucking killed me. I don’t talk about it, because you’re right: there’s not one fucking word that comes close to describing how it feels.”
Tears stream down my face as I squeeze his hand.
My strong man.
My broken man.
We both turn silent after that, and after allowing the silence for a while, Claire says, “Winter, I know you don’t want to listen to Birdie lay blame at her own feet, but I think it’s important for her to be able to unpack her feelings over that. Guilt not dealt with will only fester.”
Winter contemplates that deeply before nodding. “Okay.”
“Thank you,” Claire says and then looks at me. “Tell me about the guilt you feel, Birdie.”
My tears turn into sobs at her question, and I realise just how much guilt I feel. Winter’s arm comes around me and he holds me while I open up. “I was anxious for seven straight years. I worried about the smallest things. About every damn thing. I blew stuff way out of proportion and refused to have hope some days. It all felt too hard and too much for me to cope with. I feel like all of that stress must have surely contributed to my inability to fall pregnant and also to the miscarriages I had.” I take a deep breath. “I feel guilty that I took away Winter’s chances at becoming a father”—I ignore the soft curse word he drops—“and while deep down I know he does
n’t feel that way, I can’t help how I feel over it.”
“Have you heard of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Birdie?” Claire asks as she offers me a tissue.
I take the tissue and wipe my tears. “No.”
“It’s a therapy where you’ll learn to accept what is out of your personal control, and commit to action that improves your life. It’s a mindfulness-based therapy that I think will be helpful to you.”
“Okay.”
She smiles and I feel her warmth wash over me. She then begins working her magic, and by the time our first session is over, I fully believe we’ve found the person to help guide us back to each other. To guide us back to ourselves.
Winter pays the bill and then takes my hand to walk me out to the car. When we reach my door, he moves into me, backing me up against it. His hands come to my face and he slides them into my hair. He watches me for a few moments before bending his face to mine and kissing me. Slow and deep, I feel every ounce of his love in this kiss. When he finishes, he rests his forehead against mine and says, “I love you, angel, and I will keep coming here with you for as long as it takes us to move through this.”
My soul takes the breath she’s been refusing to take for a long time. The breath I didn’t even know I was missing.
I grip his shirt. “Thank you.”
He lifts his head and looks at me. Torment clouds his eyes. “I miss Max.”
My heart stops beating for a moment; I’m sure of it. This is the first time since just after Max died that Winter has said that to me. “Me too.”
He doesn’t say anything else before he opens my door and helps me into the car. He doesn’t need to, though; those three words are enough.
We drive in silence for five minutes, his hand on my thigh, my hand on his. Finally, I say, “Why did we think that right after a therapy session would be a good time to go on a date?”
“Fucked if I know.” He glances at me. “What do you wanna do?”
I’m absolutely drained and could sleep all afternoon. “Is it bad if I say I wanna lie down with you all afternoon?”