The Couple Most Likely To

by Lilian Darcy

There had been some satisfying stretches of connection and warmth with Jake on Monday and Wednesday nights. And thered been other stretches where chaos happened, and crying, and mess, and promising conversations evaporated in the face of twin-orientated distractions. Jake always had long days at the hospital, and it was much harder to keep the double or triple conversational tracks going when they were both tired.

  On Wednesday, she hadnt been able to get the twins to go down at their normal bedtime. Theyd napped for almost three hours at the day-care center, Nancy Allen had told her, and they just werent tired. But Stacey had known that Jake was waiting patiently for her downstairs. Hed beenwelladorableplaying with Ella and Max for an hour after their baths, but by that time hed had enough, she could see.

  Hed wanted peace and quiet.

  And her.

  And lovemaking.

  And, oh, shed wanted all this, too, as much as he did, but the more shed tried to hurry the twins into settling down, the more rambunctious theyd become, and in the end shed had a choice between leaving them crying with angry frustration in their cribs, and bringing them back downstairs.

  Shed made the wrong choice.

  Shed lost it, basically. Had given in to her fatigue and impatience and the headache rapidly tightening around her scalp.

  Here, books, shed snapped at them, throwing a couple into each crib. Now read, and then sleep. Shed wound up their musical mobile for the fourth time, her fingers rough and impatient on the turn key.

  The mobile played Laras Theme from Dr. Zhivago. Stacey had always loved that song, but she must have heard it around, oh, nine million times since Johns mother had given the mobile to the twins when they were just a month or two old, and shed begun to have deranged fantasies about upending Maxs messy dish of uneaten spaghetti from dinner onto the top of Omar Sharifs exotically handsome 1960s movie star head.

  Already regretting her loss of control, shed managed to take two steps out of the room, and the imaginary spaghetti had slurped down onto the shoulders of the imaginary Omars enormous Russian military coat when she heard an ominous thud from behind her, followed by loud crying.

  It had happened.

  Ella had learned to climb out of her crib.

  She hadnt yet learned to land safely on the other side.

  Hmm. Wednesday night, in fact, hadnt been so much mixed as more of a total disaster.

  Carrying Ella out to the car, where Jake had just buckled her seat in place, she kissed the top of her daughters little blond head and murmured, You wont be two forever, will you, sweetheart? And I wont be surprised if you climb a few mountains when you grow up. Im going to be incredibly proud of you.

  When she got back to Max, hed helpfully removed The Wiggles DVD from the player for her, by pressing all the buttons at random, and it was now covered in something sticky that he should not have had on his fingers because surely shed washed them only fifteen minutes ago. She smelled them.

  Ah.

  Granola bar.

  The one Ella had recently lost somewhere in the vicinity of the couch, she guessed.

  Lets wash hands again, she said. There could still be a rogue piece of granola bar lurking in the room waiting for its next opportunity, but she would deal with it when she got back from Olympia tonight.

  Only ten minutes later, they were ready to leave. Twelve minutes, if you counted Stacey remembering shed forgotten to lock the back door and having to run back inside.

  Jake drove. I brought a picnic, he said as they reached the interstate.

  A picnic?

  I know you dont like the kids to have too much cheap junk food.

  Yeah, the expensive junk food is much better for them. Jake, its pouring with rain.

  Which is why this is going to be a picnic in the car. This vehicle has all these whizzbang pull-down trays and pullout cup holders that Im busting to try out.

  Your previous vehicle didnt?

  He shrugged. I had a classic Jaguar that I sold in Seattle a month before I moved here.

  Quite a switch. Jag to SUV.

  Im hoping to head up to Mount Hood on weekends for some skiing, or hiking in summer. Decided it was time to pick a sensible set of wheels.

  You really like to keep fit, dont you? Cycling, skiing, hiking. She shifted in the passenger seat so she could look at Jake while he drove.

  His profile looked steady, filled with quiet authority. He glanced in the rear vision mirror, changed lanes, increased speed with smooth expertise. In his face she could still see the remnants of the young man hed once beenhed shown more vulnerability back then, more edgy teen emotionbut she realized that everything that had happened to him since that difficult time had served to make him confident and assured. Now, even at first glance, he looked like one of lifes winners.

  Its the only body Ive got, he said. You know, when I bring a baby into the world, its almost always so perfect.

  Ten fingers, ten toes.

  And everything works. Lungs and muscles and skin. Its a gift most of us are given, and too many of us He stopped suddenly. Im sounding so preachy.

  Its okay. Ill overlook that. Im interested.

  So help me, Im interested in any and every word that comes out of your mouth, Jake Logan.

  Too many of us dont cherish the gift, he said. Thats all.

  Which brings us back to the junk food. Im still skeptical about the picnic idea.

  You wait. Itll be cozy.

  Cozy?

  The heating is great in this thing. Ill keep it running. Cozy as a warm blanket by the fire.

  Tosy! said Ella. Tosy! Tosy!

  Tosy! Max echoed.

  See? Theyre with me on this.

  While Im yet to be convinced.

  They stopped after an hour, at a scenic layover just off the interstate. I mean, it would be scenic, Jake insisted, if we had any visibility.

  The raindrops racing each other down the windscreen will have to count as our distant vista, Stacey agreed.

  Distant and ever-changing. Theyre turning to sleet.

  Tosy! Ella said.

  Right on, Terrible Two, Jake agreed, before exiting the SUV to perform some mysterious action beneath the vehicles temporarily raised hood, that involved something wrapped in foil which he promised would make sense soon.

  Weirdly, it was cozy, sitting here with the sound of the rain-slash-sleet on the metal roof. Hed brought three insulated flasks, one filled with creamy potato soup, one with hot chocolate and one with coffee. He and Stacey pulled down trays, flipped open cup holders, and poured hot fluids into insulated plastic mugs.

  While they waited for the soup to cool a little, the twins snacked on pieces of fruit or vegetable stuck into individual servings of dip. Apparently apples and Middle Eastern hummus went together a lot better than their mother would have thought. Jake tried it but didnt share the twins taste.

  Stacey sipped her soup, but it was still too hot for the twins.

  Thats okay, Jake said, because we should wait for the hot rolls.

  Who is bringing us the hot rolls?

  Me. Ill go check em. He opened the door of the SUV once more.

  That is whats in the foil? And youre sitting the whole package on the engine to warm them up? Jake!

  He grinned. Back in a sec.

  She couldnt keep the smile from her face. There was really only one word for this whole unique experience that Jake had provided with such flourish.

  Tosy.

  Twenty minutes later, when theyd finished dips and vegetables, soup and rolls, coffee and hot chocolate and miniature French fruit-and-custard tarts, the sleet turned to snow.

  We still have an hour of driving, Jake.

  I know. He began to pack everything away, sparing narrow-eyed glances through the front windscreen at regular intervals. Stacey helped, sharing his growing concern.

  The snow was thickening fast, and darkness had almost fallen.

  Its not settling yet, he said.

  Thats something.

  Well get to Ol
ympia safely, and well head straight back. It wont last.

  It shouldnt. I mean, this part of Washington State does not do massive dumps of snow!

  The rest of the drive was an uneasy one, but both Jake and the vehicle handled the conditions well, and they arrived safely at Johns just as he pulled into the driveway after his commute home from work. Stacey could see him at the wheel, frowning when he saw the unfamiliar SUV parked in the space next to the garage. He pressed the automatic door opener, eased his car into the garage and appeared a moment later, still frowning. Finally, he recognized Jake, and only then looked across at the passenger seat to see her sitting there. In the backseat, the twins were almost hidden.

  Pull in beside me, he instructed Jake. Theres plenty of room. Dont get the twins wet.

  Jake nodded and reversed, then nosed forward into the remaining space. Climbing out, he went to the rear of the vehicle to unload the twinsbags. John leaned in to unstrap Ella, while Stacey unstrapped Max.

  Is your car in the shop? John asked. The click of the release button punctuated his question.

  No, but the SUV made more sense, dont you think? In these conditions?

  He nodded, and left the issue alone, but Stacey could see he was still unhappy. She felt like a parent trying to promote harmony between two feuding siblings. Now, kids, you have to learn to share.

  She felt like the monkey in the middlethe one whod have to explain each mans moods and motivations to the other, keeping conflict to a minimum. Because if she didnt promote harmony and help their interactions to run smoothly, who would? The responsibility daunted her, but if there was another choice, she couldnt see it.

  Are you staying for a while? John asked.

  I think well head back, she answered quickly. If the weather gets worse

  He gave a short, approving nod, and she could see the relief in his eyes.

  Jake hung back politely while she and John got the twins settled in. There was always too much to say, a whole slew of detail about things like where Ella and Max were up to in their potty trainingnot very far alongand what they liked best for breakfast this week. She had a nagging feeling that shed missed something, but couldnt think what it was. Finally she hugged them, with her usual struggle to find the right balance between communicating her love and appearing relaxed.

  Back in the SUV, as Jake drove down the street, her feelings were mixed. Would John be vigilant enough? Thats right! That was what shed forgotten! She should have told him about Ella climbing out of the crib.

  Pulling her cell phone from her bag, she called him quickly and told him about Wednesday night. She hasnt done it since, and Max hasnt managed it yet. I think theyll be fine if theyre tired, but dont try to put them down before theyre ready.

  Oh great, the next fun stage in their development, John groaned. Wanna come back and collect them again?

  Sometimes, yes, she did.

  Oh, but it felt good to be sitting here beside Jake, after shed ended the call to John, just the two of them wrapped in the cocoon of the dark, warm car.

  Cant make up its mind, can it? he commented as they hit the interstate. Rain or sleet or snow.

  Either way, its nasty.

  It is.

  I dont mind if you drive slow. Were in no hurry.

  He nodded and eased off the gas and they stayed silent for several minutes, with just the rhythm of the wipers going to and fro. Slush gathered near the bottom of the windscreen then slid away across the night-darkened glass.

  Why did you marry him? Jake asked, out of the blue.

  At first it seemed like such a terrible question. Jake hadnt even used his name. Just him. Although to be fair, Stacey knew at once who he meant! She almost protested, and had to bite back the defensive answer that first sprang to mind. After a deep breath, she said, Because I thought there was a good chance that we had the right kind of love.

  But it faded?

  It was never there, as things turned out. Not the way it needed to be.

  Just a physical attraction?

  Nono. That part was How did you have a conversation like this? probably not as strong as it should have been. And, yes, Jake, Im making a direct comparison between him and you. As strong as it needed to be, she corrected quickly, although the revised wording wasnt much better.

  Right, Jake said.

  She waited but he didnt add anything further, so she took another breath and prepared to speak, needing to make it clearer for him. My friend Suzanneshe majored in Fine Arts at college and shes an art museum curator now. Shes divorced. Were in a similar situation. Ill tell you how she expressed it to me once.

  Go ahead. Im listening. He didnt take his eyes from the wet road.

  She said to me something like, What would you do if you found a beautiful painting on sale at a junkyard for a couple of dollars, and you recognized the artists name and you knew it would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if it was genuine? You think it could be genuine, but it could also be a fake. Do you not buy it, just in case? Of course not. You snap it up because it looks good and its right there in your grasp, and you authenticate it later, at your leisure. Well, as Suzanne did, I snapped up the marriage because it looked good and it was right there in my grasp, only when I authenticated it later, at my leisure, it turned out not to be genuine. Does that make any sense?

  Some.

  With you, Id had such certainty. It was so overwhelming, and then it went so wrong. We hurt each other so much, Jake, you and I. I wasnt sure I wanted to go through that again. I wasnt sure that I could. With John, the fact that it was never overwhelming, never as dangerousin some weird way that felt like a better foundation. Or I theorized that it was going to be a better foundation. Safer. More rational. On paper it all looked so good.

  And he loved you, presumably.

  He thought he did. We both made similar mistakes. Johns the kind of manand it can be a heroic quality, so I shouldnt knock itwho totally goes after what he wants. Except that sometimes he goes after it before hes given himself enough time to work out if he really does want it.

  The it in this case being you.

  Me. And children. I wanted themId always wanted themso he wanted them, too, and we started trying right away. It didnt happen after a year, so he pushed for the fertility treatment before I was fully ready. I would have given it longer, taken some nice vacations together, tried to relax about it, because the tests we had couldnt pinpoint a clear cause.

  Thats often the case.

  But he pointed out that we were both getting older. His biological clock was ticking louder than mine. We got onto that whole treadmill of hormone injections and doctor visits and didnt notice how much trouble our marriage was in until, hey presto, we had twins! At which point John did some of the thinking he should have done while we were trying to get me pregnant and discovered, oops, this is a real challenge, maybe I didnt really want it, after all. He began to have the same response to our marriage and it justfell apart.

  And yet he still takes Max and Ella every second or third weekend.

  Hes a good, decent man that way. He would never shirk his responsibilities, or deprive his kids of a father. Im not sure that he enjoys it much, but itll be easier for him when theyre older. Hell be a great sports dad.

  Swish, swish, swish went the wipers after Stacey finished speaking.

  Jake knew he should say something, but nothing felt right.

  He was stunned at Staceys sense of honor, at her honesty, at the amount of strength she showed, at the way she could sketch out her ex-husbands character so accurately in just a few strokes, without shooting him down in flames.

  Thank you for telling me, he told her at last. The words felt clumsy and inadequate, even though they were true.

  Early birthday gift, she said lightly. For Christmas, you can have a blow-by-blow account of my pregnancy symptoms, labor and delivery.

  Youre too generous, Handley. You dont have to spend that much on me.

  But I want to, Logan. Youre worth
it.

  Nah. Im not. All youre getting from me is a twenty-dollar gift certificate from the bookstore at the mall.

  Hearing her breathy gurgle of laughter, he glanced sideways and saw the way she was watching him. Her blue eyes were bright and soft, and her cheeks had turned pink in the cocooning warmth of the SUV. She hadnt taken off her padded pink jacket when they got back in the vehicle after delivering the twins, and its feathery fake fur collar stood up and made a pale halo around the back of her head.

  Are we joking, Jake, or is there a subtext, here? she asked him quietly.

  There was a subtext.

  Definitely.

  But he didnt want to admit to it.

  How could he tell her how scared he was that hed end up skimping on what she deserved from him? If John always went after what he wanted before he was sure that he wanted it, Jake had a history of doing the opposite. He was so afraid of ending up with baggage that might make him unhappy that he left all sorts of precious things behind.

  He did it every time he moved on, he realized, with a blinding jolt of understanding.

  Hed sold his very nice European bicycle just before he left Australia, instead of shipping it to the U.S., and in consequence hadnt cycled for three years because he hadnt made the effort to buy another one until now. He lived in a house furnished like a display window in a homewares store because hed never collected any mementos from his travels.

  Why hadnt he kept the classic Jaguar for tooling around Portland in the summer, and simply bought the SUV in addition? He could afford it. Would ownership of two cars at once have tied him down that much?

  Can I get back to you on the subtext? he said to Stacey, knowingly trading on her capacity to understand and forgive. She would let it go, give him the right space, trust his intentions, he knew she would.

  Sure enough, she told him, Take your time, and he breathed easy again, while burning with a need to give Stacey at least a part of what she deserved from him.

  Lets stop somewhere for supper, he said. That picnic is starting to feel too small and too long ago. Id like to take you somewhere nice.

  Im not dressed for somewhere nice. She looked down doubtfully at the dark, snug-fitting trousers and soft, finely knit sweater she wore beneath her dusty pink snow jacket.