Falling

by Jane Green

  “I think we find our place when we make a decision to do what’s right for us rather than always keeping everyone else happy. From everything you’ve told me, it sounds like you spent your whole life following someone else’s plan. This sounds like the first time you’ve respected yourself enough to do what is right for you. And you’re right, that’s when we find our place.” He smiles.

  Emma’s heart lurches. I love you, she thinks, clamping her mouth shut in a tight smile to make sure the words don’t escape. “Cheers.” She raises her glass, instead, and takes a sip of her Prosecco.

  “By the way,” she says, “I forgot to tell you. I ordered the trampoline on Monday and it should be here in a couple of days. Do you think we can put it up together?”

  “I wouldn’t have you do it yourself. Not when we make such a great team. Listen, thank you for buying that for him. I know he’s struggled with you and me a bit, but hopefully it will all get better. I hope you haven’t bought the trampoline to try to make him feel better about you, because I wouldn’t want that.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” says Emma. “I’ve worried myself about whether I’m subliminally trying to bribe him, but I don’t know that I am. Honestly, he’s just crazy about trampolines and every time we pass those kids in the house on the corner jumping up and down, he stares with such longing, it just breaks my heart. I really want to try to do something nice for him.”

  Dominic smiles. “You’re right. He has been talking about a trampoline forever, and he does stare at those kids every time we drive past. I can’t believe you noticed that.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t buy him a trampoline earlier,” she jokes.

  “I was waiting for someone else to pay for it,” he says. “Seriously, though, thank you. This is incredibly meaningful to me. And Jesse. That you would notice and then do something so nice.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” says Emma, as Dominic reaches over and strokes her hand. “I think he’s such a great kid. This really isn’t a bribe, but a part of me does hope that eventually he’ll see I’m not a bad person.”

  “I don’t think he thinks you’re a bad person at all,” says Dominic. “You have to remember it has only ever been him and me. I’ve been very careful to keep any relationships I’ve had away from him. Gina never spent the night, for example. He’s really had no experience of seeing me with anyone on an ongoing basis.”

  “So why have you let him see us?” says Emma, in a tone of voice so light it doesn’t give away what she is really thinking, hoping, wanting to hear.

  “You know why,” says Dominic.

  “I do?” Her heart skips a beat.

  “Is it too early to say it?”

  “Say what?” says Emma, whose voice catches in her throat.

  “That . . . this. Us. Feels . . . right. It does to you, too, doesn’t it? Feel right?”

  “Yes.” Emma laughs to dispel her nervousness and her slight smudge of disappointment that he didn’t say what she so wanted to hear. She pushes it aside.

  Dominic’s face is now serious. “I mean it, Emma. I don’t know what it is about you . . .”

  “Is it my English accent? My excellent teeth?” She bares them. “Is it my curls?”

  Dominic laughs. “Why, yes. It is in fact all of those things, but more than that, it just feels . . . I don’t know. Different. I feel safe with you. I love . . . being with you. It’s the easiest, most comfortable relationship I’ve ever had.”

  “Is it a relationship, then?” Emma says.

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes!” He wipes an imaginary bead of sweat off his forehead. “I was getting worried.”

  The waiter approaches the table. “May I tell you about today’s specials?”

  “Thank God!” Emma looks at him. “Saved by the linguini.”

  The waiter frowns. “We don’t have linguini today.”

  Emma shakes her head with a laugh. “Never mind. My mistake. Tell us what you do have.”

  • • •

  The food has been eaten, the wine has been drunk, and Emma and Dominic have not stopped talking all night. She has heard his stories. And she has shared her own.

  “Did you know you liked me as soon as you met me?” she teases, late in the meal.

  “Almost as soon as I met you. I didn’t walk away thinking, Wow, that tenant is super hot.” He laughs as Emma makes a comically disappointed face, growing serious before taking her hand. “It was more than that, Emma. I liked being with you, from that very first time. Even when you came to look at the house, I kept thinking about you. I was so worried you wouldn’t take it! And after you signed the lease, I found I really looked forward to seeing you. When I’d leave the house and come out to the driveway, I would dawdle a little, hoping you’d come out and see me.”

  Emma is moved by his words, surprised that his feelings mirrored her own so exactly. The feelings that well up inside her are almost more than she can deal with, an explosion of happiness deep inside her belly. She has to lighten the mood, so she laughs again and says, “Oh God! I was doing the same thing. I’d hear your truck pull in and suddenly remember that I had to go to the mailbox.”

  “Remember when you went to get the mail early one morning and I came over to talk to you? Oh my God. Your face!”

  “I was devastated. It was the one time I didn’t want you to see me. I’d just rolled out of bed and I looked terrible.”

  “You looked adorable.” Dominic’s eyes twinkle at the memory. “I think that was the moment I really started to fall for you.”

  “Have you fallen for me, then?” I love you, she thinks.

  He smiles. “Let’s just say I like you.”

  “I like you, too,” says Emma. “I really like you. I really, really like you a lot.”

  The smile leaves Dominic’s face as he looks at her. “I love you,” he says, serious now.

  “Oh, thank God!” Emma bursts out, almost weeping with relief, before laughing at herself. “I’m sorry, Dominic. I’m so relieved to hear you say it. I love you. I love you, too.”

  Dominic leans forward and kisses her, pulling back for just a second to look at her, smiling into her eyes before kissing her again.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” says Dominic. “You. Us. All of it. I was happy to grow old with Jesse.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it, either.” Emma laughs again, turning as they hear a burst of noise from the sidewalk outside.

  They both watch a woman throw her head back with laughter as she’s about to get into a large white Suburban. She looks over to the restaurant just as she gets in the car, and when Emma turns back to Dominic, the color has drained from his face.

  “Are you okay?” Emma rests her hand on Dominic’s. “What’s wrong?”

  “That woman.” He turns to her with an unfamiliar look in his eye, frowning. “That was . . . Stacy.”

  “Stacy?”

  He’s silent for a moment, looking dazed. “Jesse’s mother.”

  “Oh my God.” Emma’s hands fly to her mouth. “She’s in town?”

  “It would seem so,” says Dominic, now distant. Cold.

  “I can’t believe she’s here and she hasn’t been in touch. How can she not want to see Jesse?”

  Dominic’s face hardens as he calls the waiter over. “Can we have the check, please? We have to go.”

  Dominic doesn’t talk all the way home. His jaw is clenched and twitching with anxiety. Emma sits staring down at the dashboard, unable to look at him, wanting this journey to be over as quickly as possible.

  What just happened? she thinks. He just told her he loves her. How could seeing his ex-girlfriend derail him so? He had said Stacy hadn’t meant much to him, other than giving him the greatest gift in the world in Jesse. If that is true, why is he so tense, so distracted, so c
learly upset?

  Emma stares out the window as they drive over the bridge, not even noticing the reflection of the lights in the water. Up until ten minutes ago, her life was perfect. What the hell just happened?

  Can it have changed so quickly? In seconds? Was this all a terrible mistake? She turns her head from time to time to look at Dominic. She is sure he knows she is looking at him, but instead of turning to look back, or reaching over to give her hand a reassuring squeeze, he stares stonily ahead, not saying a word.

  “Is there something I can do to help?” Emma tries, halfway down Compo Road South. She wants to ask him why he’s reacting so strongly, what his behavior means, but she’s frightened of the look on his face.

  “I’m fine,” says Dominic, who clearly isn’t fine. Emma looks at his hands on the steering wheel, wondering if she should reach over and touch him, stroke his arm, squeeze his hand. But he has an impenetrable wall around him.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” says Emma, getting out of the truck in the driveway and hesitating. For a while now she has been going automatically to Dominic’s house, brushing her teeth and washing her face in his bathroom at the top of the stairs, climbing into his bed, and falling asleep curled up in his arms.

  “You’re welcome,” says Dominic, distractedly.

  “I think maybe I should sleep at mine tonight,” Emma says, which isn’t what she wants at all. She wants him to snap out of whatever it is he’s going through and put his arms around her. She wants him to apologize, tell her again that he loves her, that the words they’d said to each other at dinner and the happiness they’d found together were more important than anything Stacy might have meant to him or done to him.

  But instead he says, “Sure. That’s probably a good idea.” Dominic gives her a perfunctory peck on the lips and turns to walk into his house. Clearly his mind is still elsewhere. She doubts he even realizes he is walking away from her. Emma stands as still as a stone, feeling like her entire world has collapsed.

  She makes it inside, closes the door, and locks it before she realizes there are tears staining her cheeks. Once inside, though, she tries to steady herself. Just give him a few minutes, she admonishes herself. Obviously it’s a big deal for him to see her; he’d told her before that he had no idea where she was living or anything. Just give him some time. The poor man must be traumatized. If he would let her, she would try to comfort him, reassure him.

  Dominic is sure to knock on the door eventually and apologize. How is it possible that one second he is telling her he loves her, and seconds later, when he glimpses his ex, he’s changed his mind? It’s not possible. It must be that he is upset, and if that’s the case, he will come over. He would not leave her without an explanation for this long.

  Her mind starts spinning again to darker thoughts, which grow darker as the night progresses and there is no word from Dominic. No reassuring text, no quick hug to let her know that he is okay, that what they have is still real.

  In the early hours she sits straight up. What if he has realized he’s still in love with Jesse’s mother? What other explanation could there be for his behavior?

  Emma pictures the woman she saw so briefly from inside the restaurant. It had been hard to really see what she looked like. A redhead, slim, leather pants and some kind of brightly colored top. Was she pretty? Hard to tell. Probably. Was she the kind of woman Emma could see Dominic with? Well, yes. She looked like all the women who hang around the bar at the Fat Hen and try to chat Dominic up. She looked like the kind of woman Emma would have imagined Dominic to be with, before she fell in love with him herself.

  She is up all night, intermittently crying and feeling numb, exhaustion wreaking havoc with her emotions. She starts off concerned about Dominic, knowing he will come to talk to her, for isn’t she his partner? His lover? Isn’t she the woman he just tonight claimed to love?

  But he doesn’t come.

  At four in the morning, exhausted and bewildered, she gives up trying to go to sleep and makes herself tea.

  A few weeks ago, I was the most self-sufficient, independent woman in the world, she thinks. I had everything going for me. I had left the city and found a great little house and I didn’t need anyone. I had finally accepted that I was better off on my own, that I didn’t really fit in with other people, and that was fine. Good, even. This is exactly the kind of heartache and misery that comes with trusting someone else, looking to someone else to make you happy. I’m a loner. I’ve always been a loner, and I should never have tried to be someone else. This was my mistake in thinking I could have a relationship, that a connection, love, would make me happy. See how it ended up? I should have known better than to have given this much power to another person, allowed myself to get hurt in this way.

  She replays the end of the evening over and over, as if watching the movie in her mind will somehow shed more light on the matter, offer some clarity, help her understand. The only conclusion she can draw is that Dominic has to still be in love with his ex. And she has come back. Which means Emma’s relationship with Dominic is over. Which means that everything in her life has to change.

  She can’t stay here, in this house. She can’t deal with the pain of living next door to him and seeing him every day.

  At five in the morning she sits down at her desk and goes online to look at rental properties in the area. At five fifteen she stops, unable to believe she has to move again, unable to believe this is happening to her.

  This is why I don’t have proper relationships, she thinks. This is why I have avoided falling for anyone all these years. This pain of ending is almost unbearable. How am I supposed to deal with it? How do I move through this and get back to being the whole person I was before I gave my heart away?

  At six, she picks up her cell and calls the very last person in the world she would normally think to call. But there is no one on this side of the Atlantic who would be awake.

  Her mother picks up after two rings.

  “Darling, what a lovely surprise. I was just about to leave for a tasting for the engagement. I’ve found the most wonderful caterer. She’s doing these little crab choux pastries after I told her about the ones we had at the Connaught the other week, and the most divine mini roast beef and Yorkshire pudds. I haven’t got long, darling. Everything okay?”

  “I’m fine,” says Emma, as her voice cracks and a sob escapes.

  “Darling! Are you crying? What’s happened?”

  There are a few seconds of muffled silence as Emma tries to stifle her sobs. “I’m sorry, Mummy. Just a bad day.”

  “Bugger the caterers,” says her mother. “I’ve got all the time in the world. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’m just having a bad day,” repeats Emma, who has never told her mother much about her personal life for fear of her mother’s judgment. “I’m really fine. It’s just a mild case of the blues.”

  “You know what you need?” says her mother.

  “What?”

  “A nice sweet cup of tea for starters,” she says. Emma manages a smile. She had forgotten how her mother believes, like most Brits, that a nice sweet cup of tea is the cure-all for anything and everything. “And,” her mother continues, “you need to come home and let Mummy and Daddy look after you. I know you said you probably weren’t going to come to the engagement, but, darling, there’s nothing like being looked after at home when you’re feeling blue. I won’t even ask you to come to the party if you don’t feel like it. You can sleep in your own bedroom cuddling up with Ritalin.”

  “What’s Ritalin?”

  “Not what. Who. It’s our new cat. She’s completely bonkers. We called her Mittens originally, but we quickly changed it to Ritalin. She’s mad all day long, and has driven the dogs potty, but at night she’s very sweet and she loves to cuddle. I’ll make you lots of cups of tea and Daddy’s very good at pouring gene
rous single malts. I’ll make you shepherd’s pie and trifle. You’ll feel better in no time. Will you come, Emma? I don’t know what’s going on, darling, but I do know that being at home is the very best place to be when life isn’t going the way you want it to.”

  “I’ll think about it,” says Emma with a sniff, grateful for her mother choosing to be loving and sweet. Emma had forgotten her mother could be loving and sweet. For the first time in perhaps forever, returning to her childhood home is starting to sound appealing.

  “That’s what you’ve been saying ever since I told you about the party. Why don’t you just say yes? I can also update the numbers for the caterer.”

  “You’re sure I don’t have to be at the party if I don’t feel like it?” says Emma dubiously, knowing that the last thing she will feel like doing is being paraded around in front of a group of family members she hasn’t seen in years, and strangers she has no interest in meeting.

  “Quite sure,” says her mother.

  “Okay,” says Emma with a deep breath. “I’ll come.”

  Her decision to visit England leaves her with a feeling of such relief that she decides the only way to get through the rest of the day is to get out of town. Showering quickly and dressing, she drives to the train station, averting her eyes from Tarantino’s as she goes by, a swell of tears threatening to fall as she thinks about their evening last night, still unable to understand how something could change so drastically so quickly.

  With a coffee to-go cup in hand, she walks up the stairs to the platform and waits for the Metro-North into the city, no idea where she will go when she is there, knowing only that she wants to spend the entire day away from Dominic, away from Westport, away from memories that have become so painful overnight.