Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 17 - "Twenty Eight" (PG)

by James David Denisson

everyone wants to asks is: what was this 'terrible thing' that you did to your producer?"

  "Well, you have to understand, that question needs to be put into context. If I just come out and say it, well, it makes me look like a terrible person. And it wasn't like that. Judd is a friend and it was because he was a friend that things turned out worse than they could have been. The truth is I was seeing Judd's wife. I was hiding the fact from Judd because I didn't want to hurt him."

  "But what he didn't say," I add, "was that my wife and I were separated at the time. We were free to see other people. We were still living together for appearance sake, but still separated."

  And so, there is the lie. Normally I'd have not felt any regret at telling this sort of untruth if it had a noble purpose, but now I was feeling something different. We weren't separated. Quinn did sleep with Wade. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to see, to experience. But I still had to protect her, and that meant that I had to swallow my pride and talk my way out of this mess.

  "Now reports that I've received," Jerry says, not letting us free one inch, "say that you, Judd, left the Man Up show immediately after finding out about your employer and your wife. Is that true?"

  "Yes it is."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because I wasn't expecting it. Wade is a friend and the whole thing was a shock to say the least. My best friend and my wife - you see how you cope with that. But the thing is: I was good with it in the end. I just needed a bit of time to get used to the idea."

  "But I'm not with her anymore," Wade says. "I'm happily married to someone else and Judd and his wife have reconciled. That's the word, right?"

  "Yeah," I reply. "And we're having a baby in the next few months. So, it all worked out well."

  Jerry is not looking at all pleased, but he knows that he can't dig deeper because he's run out of questions.

  "So really there's no scandal," Wade says.

  Jerry looks from Wade to me and back again. We're both smiling benignly, and he knows that whatever story he thought he had has quickly evaporated. Not only that, but he's already done the promos and talked the network into giving him a slot just after the evening news. He's already thinking of ways to spin this so that he doesn't look like a fool. But that's his problem and not ours.

  Quinn makes love to me that night. Then we cool down in the dark with the muted sounds of traffic below us, with sweat still on our skins, and the last vestiges of electricity dissipating in our bodies. Quinn sides to my side, under my arm, under my protection. I run my fingers down her side, over the bumps of her ribs and down to her hip and into the gentle curve that leads to the swelling of her belly.

  I'm thinking, as I lay there with her naked in my arms, how different my experience is to that of what I've seen of her and Wade. Admittedly it was only once, and that was enough for me. That was primal, lustful, dirty. Quinn and I have something else, something richer, loving, safe. Perhaps even pure. The truth is I don't want to screw Quinn like Wade did. I want to love her like only I can.

  And I think what negative connotations come with the word 'safe'. But I don't think people actually know what that means in this context. Safe does not mean mundane, boring, repetitive. I think it means that Quinn and I are safe to explore ourselves without shame, without reproach and without limits. There is security in that. There is scope for love to work its magic in that.

  And anyway, I don't want to compare myself to him. I'll always come out second best. He was new and exciting to Quinn, and that was part of the attraction to her. I was normal and routine when she wanted more. But that's not the way things are anymore.

  She sighs contentedly, moves closer to me. "That was a very brave thing you did tonight," she tells me.

  "I don't know about that."

  "Every time you have a chance to show me how much you've changed, how you grown, you amaze me."

  "I told a lie tonight, Quinn," I confess. "I'm not proud of that. I want to be better than that."

  "But it was for a good reason. You were protecting me."

  "I know, but it the fact that I had to do it still doesn't sit well with me."

  "Well, think of this like a fight, or a war. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do to win."

  "I suppose," I say, but I'm still not convinced.

  Saturday

  It's unseasonably hot out in the garden. Fall lingers, has one last word before winter comes upon us. Grant and I are out there again while the women sit in air conditioned comfort. He's red faced and sweating profusely, puffing and panting. He doesn't look well at all.

  "Are you okay?" I ask him even though I know the answer.

  "I'm fine," he lies. "This heat knocks me around a little. I'm not as young as I used to be."

  "None of us are."

  "So," he says, "I saw the interview last night."

  "Ah." I know exactly where he's going with this. "You want to talk about what I said."

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "I don't know. Is it a problem?"

  "Well you did fib a little there."

  "Yeah."

  "And it was a pretty big fib too. You said on national television that Quinn didn't strictly have an affair and that you were upset by the fact that it was your friend and not that she was discarding your vows."

  "When you say it like that..."

  "How would you say it?"

  "Well, I was more than just upset, for starters."

  "Good. Now you own how you felt about it. The problem here is that you might be tempted to minimize the impact of what happened between you two. The fact is that she did discard her vows and she did hurt you."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "Just make sure that you remember what happened."

  "I thought that we were trying to forget all that bad stuff."

  "What makes you think that?" he asks me.

  "You know: forgive and forget."

  "That's not how it works. You forgive, but you both have to remember what happened. That's part of owning our sins and repenting of them. We can't turn away if we don't know what we're turning from. Understand?"

  "I think so."

  "What about your baby?"

  "What about her?"

  "Not her, him."

  I look at him sideways. I don't know where he's going with this.

  "You call what happened to him a miscarriage," he explains.

  "Ah. I see. You want us to call it what it was. Stop minimizing that too."

  "What do you think about that?"

  "I think calling it what it was is actually too painful to think about. I know what it was. Quinn knows what it was. Calling it what we do makes it easier. I don't have a problem with that."

  "But see, you've both identified losing your boy as the start of the... I was going to say end there, but it's not the end. Minimizing what happened then makes the impact of it less than what it was. Did you hold him?"

  I'm suddenly aware that my eyes are filling and I can't stop it. "Yes," I say.

  "How did you feel when you held him?"

  "Do I have to talk about this?"

  "We don't have to talk about it. But I think it's important."

  "I can't describe it. It was like everything died in me. My hopes, my dreams."

  "How do you think Quinn felt about it?"

  I shake my head. "She told me. It was like she lost a part of herself. All her joy was wrapped up in that little body. I saw a little of the light in her go out that day." I'm hanging my head. I'm suddenly ashamed that I wasn't the one that turned that light back on again. I'm ashamed that I stifled it for so many years. And she kept on dying, day after day, until the life had been almost taken from her. Why didn't I see that? Why didn't I step up and get her the help she desperately needed? Why didn't I see her, hear her? Why didn't I love her?

  "Quinn is almost a month away from when you lost him, isn't she?"

  I'm nodding. I can't speak. The tears have stopped but the grief remains.


  "Then she is feeling all of those things again. She's feeling them because she's becoming afraid. She may not tell you, but you should know she's going through that. And it will get worse over the next month."

  "What can I do?"

  "Tell her how you feel about it. Be honest with her. And this will encourage her to tell you how she feels."

  Quinn has me making a small detour on the way home. We come out of a hardware chain store with paint. I'm carrying two tins of pink. The time has come. She wants the room made ready.

  Later I pull out all the furniture and flotsam and lay down plastic sheets on the wooden floor. Slowly the pale blue is replaced, wall after wall. I'm speckled with the stuff when I'm done with the first coat. She comes in and inspects my work, kisses me as a sign of her approval.

  "Rachel is going to love her room," she says.

  "Rachel?" I ask with raised brows. The last name on the list.

  "Yes," Quinn says and kisses me again.

  In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks?

  Quinn gives Judd an unexpected and early birthday present? The show starts to move in a different direction? A tragedy cancels counselling?

  She wraps her arms around me from behind and I'm startled a little. I've been thinking too hard and was distracted, didn't hear her. She leans her head against my neck.

  "Finally," she says.

  "It's taken a while."

  "Why? Are you afraid?" She knows me.

  "No. Just lazy."

  She laughs a little. "But not anymore."

  I turn and she stands before me, snakes her arms around my neck, looks me in the eye.

  "I know it sounds stupid, but this means a lot to me. I've been looking at that empty space for months. I guess that I thought it meant that you hadn't fully come home.