by Amanda Hamm
Tightening the Knot
Amanda Hamm
© 2009 by Amanda Hamm
All rights reserved. No part may be copied or reproduced in any manner or by any means without prior written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-0-557-05658-3
Tightening the Knot is a work of fiction. All names, places, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
To my husband,
who doesn’t like coconut either.
╣ Chapter 1 ╠
Meredith hated the man sitting across from her. She hated the shiny scalp visible under his ridiculous comb-over and the third and fourth chins created by his too-tight collar. She hated the way he licked his finger before he turned each page of his desk calendar. But mostly she hated him because of his job.
“Have you told your husband yet?”
“My husband?” she whispered.
“Because I’ll need to know who will be representing him.”
Meredith bit her lip and shook her head slightly. The man went back to shuffling the papers on his desk and occasionally licking one of those disgusting fingers. She felt sick to her stomach. A minute later, he pushed some of those papers to her side of the desk. “You can start by filling these out,” he said.
She took the pen he handed to her and thought it felt oddly heavy. It got heavier and pressed her hand against the desk until she was forced to drop it. But then it rolled lightly across the desk and bounced off the strange giant-headed turtle paperweight. Meredith had longed for a sign to give her some direction in this decision. This was a little late, but as far as signs go it couldn’t be much clearer. She stood up abruptly, knocking that pen all the way to the ugly brown carpet; the kind used in so many offices and designed not to show stains.
The man looked startled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m wasting your time.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes. Or maybe it isn’t really wrong after all. I guess I just, what I mean is… it’s not you, it’s me.” She smiled in spite of herself and let out a nervous laugh. Did she just break up with a divorce attorney? “I think I’ve changed my mind about this whole… thing.”
“Okay. In my line of work, it can actually be a good thing to lose a client.” It was the right thing to say, but his forced smile gave away his disappointment.
She left the office quickly, guilt about all the wrong things swirling in her head, and walked into the quiet, sterile hallway. This felt better. She twirled her ring around her finger, glad it wasn’t going anywhere. There was a little too much zeal in the spin and it flipped right off and out of her hands. She tried to catch it, but felt it slip past and saw it bounce and heard it rattle on the hard floor. She stomped down, trying to stop it with her shoe and somehow caught it on its side, hard. Back on her finger, it fit differently. She took it off, very carefully this time, for inspection. It was no longer a perfect circle. Meredith probably wouldn’t have cared at all about the tiny dent if the circumstances had been different. If the ring had been bruised anywhere but the office of a divorce attorney, if it hadn’t seemed so fitting, she likely wouldn’t have thought about it again.
She sighed heavily and paused for a moment to wallow in the certainty that she would always feel that dent and remember how it got there. Then she tried to shake it off as simply the defining moment in this new resolve, the one she was still forming. All she felt right then was that if her marriage was going down the drain, she was not going to be the one to pull the plug. Not like this.
She took slow, deep breaths on the way home, trying to contain her excitement. She was thrilled that it was finally time for things to be different. She and her husband, Greg, could be like newlyweds again. How was that not fantastic? There was a slight rush of adrenaline as she walked through the door of her home. She was ready to make things better. Greg was watching TV and looked up as she came in. “You’re late today. Did something come up?”
It wasn’t an accusation, but Meredith immediately became annoyed… with herself. She taught first grade. The school day ended at 3:25 and she usually stayed after to do paperwork or tidy the classroom. But not on Fridays. On Fridays, she liked to leave right after the last student. This was Friday and she was coming home just before 6 o’clock. Of course Greg noticed. She was an idiot for not thinking of something to say. But she couldn’t lie to him any more than she could casually mention where she had actually been. Why didn’t she have a speech prepared? And why didn’t he care!? After two full minutes of watching her stand open-mouthed in the doorway, he turned back to the TV.
She felt all the air coming out of her inflated resolve. “Well, if you’re not even going to wait for an answer,” she huffed, and stormed up the stairs. She looked around their bedroom. She groaned. There was no food in the bedroom. Why did she come upstairs at dinnertime when there was no food in the bedroom? Meredith briefly imagined going back down and asking the man she had just snapped at if he had made her something to eat. That would surely improve everyone’s mood.
She groaned again and changed her clothes. It was completely out of the ordinary for her to change clothes after work, but felt it gave her an excuse for having come up the stairs. Then she went back down to the kitchen intending to make a sandwich. She found a plate of leftovers in the fridge, Greg had made dinner, and warmed that up instead.
She sat at the table eating and pretending to watch the news. She was really watching Greg. They had been married for six years and she still loved watching him. Talking to him had become another matter altogether. Each conversation seemed to revolve around that which they were not talking. They had fallen into an accepted silence. But it was not the happy, confident silence that results from being so comfortable with each other that words are no longer necessary. It was a sullen refusal to communicate and it seemed unlikely that they were going to bond over the shared stubbornness. Meredith had called the attorney during a weak moment when she did not know what else to do. Sitting there starring at Greg, she knew now it was time to figure out what else to do. It was time for a plan.
╣ Chapter 2 ╠
Meredith was what some people would call a cradle Catholic, having been raised in the faith. Greg was Catholic, too. He was also six years older than Meredith. Both of these facts about him stood out to Meredith’s parents when she introduced him shortly after her 20th birthday. When they discovered that his older sister was a nun, one began to outweigh the other in importance.
Now Meredith decided that step one in her newly forming plan to reconcile with her husband was to go to Confession and reconcile with herself. A nice, clean slate seemed appropriate. She never knew how often to attend, feeling that too often meant she wasn’t trying hard enough to overcome her sins and not often enough meant she wasn’t being honest with herself about those sins. Like other problems in her life, she chose to solve this by avoiding the issue altogether. Consequently, it had been nearly three years since her last visit to a confessional. When she mentioned to Greg where she was headed, he naturally looked surprised. He also looked as though he knew better than to comment on this decision.
****
The large church was very quiet as she entered. Meredith joined those kneeling in the rear pews to wait her turn. She marveled at how different the relatively empty building looked on a Saturday afternoon. It was as though the architecture was more visible with fewer people to distract the eyes. When her turn came, she knelt behind the screen and recited the opening lines, wincing slightly as she admitted her long absence.
As she opened her mouth to list the nitty-gritty part, step one of her plan came to a choking halt. She was suddenly aware that she didn’t know h
ow to say what she wanted to say. The first words that came into her head were “I haven’t been honoring my marriage vows.” But that sounded like… and she hadn’t done that! Her mind was reeling for a better explanation. She knew she was responsible for some of the tension at home, but how could she put that into words? Where to start? There was an inexplicable wave of panic threatening to drown her and when she noticed by his shadow that the priest was getting up, that he was coming around to her side, she reacted without thought. She jumped up like a crazy person and bolted to the parking lot.
After several furtive glances assured her she had not been followed, Meredith sat in her car sulking. It no longer mattered that her plan had no step two. Once she was calm and her heart rate had returned to normal, she decided that this was going to be a setback, not a defeat. St Andrew’s was not that far away. She would simply have to find out when they had Confession and try again where no one would recognize the fool who was afraid of a priest. Or rather, a priest’s shadow.
Two of Meredith’s friends were meeting her for dinner in an hour and she determined to use the time until then to write out exactly what she would say next time. Using crib notes in a confessional was surely less pathetic than a major freak out.
****
Jenna was waiting for her at the restaurant. It had become an unwritten rule between them to show up early and have a few minutes alone before Mercy arrived. Jenna and Meredith had been best friends since the sixth grade. They remained close despite some jealousy on both sides. Jenna was a knockout. She was simply beautiful with thick, chestnut hair that she kept long and perfect at all times. She was a Jazzercize instructor and her figure earned the gym numerous clients of both sexes. It was excellent job security. But despite all the attention she received from guys, she still had very bad luck in the relationship department and tried very hard not to resent the fact that Meredith had married her first serious boyfriend right out of college.
She looked concerned as Meredith sat down with an obvious cloud around her. “What’s up with you?”
“I’m having a bad day, or week actually, but I’m going to change it.” She took a deep breath to insert a dramatic pause. “I’ve decided to work on my marriage… but I’m not really sure what that means.”
“Are you and Greg having problems again?”
“Not again… still.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you said things were improving.”
“I thought they were.”
“Maybe it’s time, you know, if Greg is still willing…” Jenna seemed to be trying to choose her words carefully, and with good reason. She was alluding to marriage counseling. Greg had suggested this a few months ago and it was still a sore spot with Meredith. She had stubbornly insisted that they did not need anyone else’s help to solve their problems. She had felt proven correct when the discussion had them temporarily talking about what those problems might be. When the talks eventually brought them back to their original stalemate, she found it too difficult to swallow her pride and admit that maybe they could use some outside help after all.
“He hasn’t brought it up again.”
“Have you?”
Meredith just shook her head, looking defeated. And Jenna didn’t really want to talk about this any more than her friend. She felt completely unqualified for any sort of relationship advice, having never had one of her own last more than two months. “Well…” Jenna dove into the silence with a new topic. “My resolve was tested today.”
“The one about not dating clients?”
“I almost didn’t say it today.” Looking the way she did, Jenna was hit on at least once a week. She used to have a fairly liberal acceptance policy, agreeing to meet most guys who seemed nice, and were not scary. She hoped that the more guys she met, the more likely she’d be to luck into a good one. Her luck had apparently not kicked in yet. After a particularly disastrous date that involved washing her hair in tomato sauce the following day, she changed her policy. She now insisted that she would not date again until a man was willing to work for a “yes.” She called it the “I don’t date clients” policy for simplicity and mostly it just gave her a rejection line to use without feeling guilty. “This guy,” she continued, “his name is Shawn, and we talked a little bit last week and I saw him again today and he asked me out and I kinda wanted to say yes since it wasn’t the first time I saw him.”
Meredith nodded with mock understanding. “So he happened to be at the gym twice, a place he’s paid a ridiculous fee to attend, and that qualifies as working for your attention?”
“Well, he was also there on Thursday and he waved at me during my class.”
“Oh you didn’t tell me there was a wave. Now I understand.”
Jenna didn’t mind the teasing and even laughed at herself a little. “Okay, I admit it! He’s very cute.”
Meredith smiled, too. “I thought so. And I don’t really want to give you a hard time. It’s just… You did tell me to remind you of the tomato sauce if it seemed like you were giving in too easily.”
“I know. And you’re right about the membership fee. At least that means he’ll probably be back. So maybe he will try again, and then it’ll be okay to go out with him.”
“Go out with who?” Mercy had just arrived.
“Just some guy I met at the gym.”
“Do we really need to hear about all the guys you meet?” Mercy rolled her eyes as she sat down. She didn’t hide her jealousy as well as some. “Have you guys ordered yet? I’m starving as usual.” Mercy Sayers was a fellow teacher, fourth grade, and Meredith had known her for years. They had only started getting together outside of school the last four or five months. She was expecting her first child at the end of the month. Meredith found the torture of hearing about another woman’s pregnancy strangely irresistible and Mercy could talk about little else. “It’s insane how much this little guy apparently eats.”
“Just wait until he’s a teenager. My mom could never keep enough food in the house for my brother.”
“That is kind of a scary thought. But I don’t know if he’ll ever be a teenager. He’d have to come out first.” She said the last line a little louder and addressed it to her abdomen.
“You sound ready for the due date.”
“Am I ever! The closer I get to delivery, the more people keep telling me to enjoy sleep while I can. What sleep? How can you sleep with a foot, or something, constantly wedged between your ribs?”
“But it’s still neat to feel him moving, right?”
“Yeah, I guess. But he’s like my own personal space heater. I’m hot all the time. I mean, it’s December and I’m always hot.”
Jenna was growing bored, these complaints were not new, and tried to steer things in a different direction. “So Mercy, you were supposed to meet your sub yesterday. How did that go?”
“Oh, yes. Speaking of hot…” She grinned suggestively. “I am almost sorry to be leaving, Meredith. You are going to enjoy the eye candy replacing me, not to mention the fun of watching the single teachers battling for his attention.”
“Hot, huh? What else do we know about this guy?” Jenna clearly approved of the conversation’s new heading.
“He’s very young, like twenty-four or twenty-five I think. He just finished his Master’s. His name is Gavin. Dark hair, dark eyes, he has sort of a Mediterranean thing going on.”
“Hey, Mer, maybe you could forget your lunch or something so I’ll have to come visit you at school.”
“Sure. We’ll hang out. I’ll show you the sites.”
“Okay, but if this guy doesn’t live up to the hype, I’m eating the lunch myself.”
They all laughed, then Mercy sighed. “As much as I want this baby to hurry up and get here, I’ll be sad that you two will have to go back to hanging out without me for a while. I don’t know how long it will be before I’ll be able to have another girls’ night.”
“Yeah, I’m just glad Meredith hasn’t abandoned me for a baby yet. I g
uess she’s waiting until I land a man so we can do it together.” She winked at Meredith. “I hope you don’t mind waiting till you’re forty.”
Meredith forced her outward appearance to return the smile while her insides split painfully in two. She hadn’t told anyone, not even her best friend, that she and Greg had been trying to have a baby for nearly two years… that it had become the source of almost everything that was wrong between them. She was sure it would bring nothing but pitying looks that she would not be able to bear. How those looks could be worse than keeping it a secret eluded her at that particular moment.
╣ Chapter 3 ╠
There was one week left of school before the holiday break. Normally, this was a time that Meredith truly enjoyed. She loved helping her students make presents for their parents, and she loved the time off with her own family. This year she was having a little trouble getting into a festive mood. Greg’s mother would be descending from Virginia on Wednesday. Since Greg’s only sibling was a nun, all hopes of grandchildren rested on his shoulders and his mother was not shy about reminding him, and Merdith, of this responsibility. Meredith didn’t feel they should be trying to bring a child into a house where the adults rarely spoke more than two sentences a day to each other. Alerting her mother-in-law to this fact would be very unlikely to make her feel any better.
Meredith’s brother, Tom, was also starting a visit on Friday, along with his girlfriend. Tom was twenty-four. He met Ellie during college in Bowling Green, Ohio and they both stayed in that area after graduation. She was nice enough. Meredith felt extraordinarily bad about using the phrase “nice enough” whenever she mentioned this possible sister-in-law, but the phrase always seemed to slip out anyway. There was something awkward about Ellie that made it seem as though she was being introduced for the first time every time she entered a room. It made the whole family nervous. Meredith was charged with picking them up from the airport and was reminded by her mom during a Sunday evening phone call.