The Truth Is a Theory
Page 36
Megan nodded.
“And you know me, silence was never my friend. That’s when I used to panic. Literally.” She glanced at Megan, who had lived through a few of Allie’s panic attacks. “Now I try not to let that stuff throw me. I know that the ‘conquering’ in ‘love conquers all’ implies effort.” Allie smiled. “Isn’t therapy great?”
A huge wave crashed and sent them scrambling to higher ground, their legs dripping with ocean water.
“Did I ever tell you what my mother told me about an hour before I walked down the aisle?” Megan said.
Allie turned towards her and shook her head.
“Not the best timing really, and not the kind of revelation you want to hear on your wedding day—things she and my dad have had to work on, times when they were really unhappy with each other.”
Allie’s eyebrows shot up. Megan’s parents always seemed so happy and in love.
“I know; I had no idea. They always seemed so perfect, they made it look so easy. And at the time I was thinking: too much information, Mom.” Megan smiled. “But she told me something I’ve remembered when Jared and I are arguing or just zooming in different directions. She told me, love is an incredible feeling, but it’s one of many, and marriage is the container for them all. Feelings morph, shift, get big, get small, and sometimes with all that feeling you just want to run away. Then you bump into the container wall and you have to turn around and figure it out together.”
“I like that,” Allie said. Then she did a double take. “You never told me that.”
“I always think you know everything I know.”
They walked a bit farther in comfortable silence.
“Should we turn around?” Megan asked.
“Yeah. Let’s go back.”
————
Dana had moved back into their house in the beginning of June, after a full year of living in an apartment on the other side of town. The move back in wasn’t a trial run, and they weren’t doubtful. He and Allie had been working up to this beginning for some time now, getting together casually as a family on the weekends, and just the two of them during the week for what they playfully, and by default, called dates. And of course, they got together more formally in Sarah’s office where they cried and clawed their way through the overgrown, tangled hurt and frustration.
Settling back underneath the roof of marriage was something they had considered very carefully, and they held off a little longer than they both would have liked, not wanting to jump back in too soon. But finally, when their “I wish you didn’t have to go” at the end of a date or weekend was no longer accompanied by a tiny “but it’s okay that you do” and instead was hitched to an ache in their hearts and palpable hole in their lives, they knew that the time had come. And they couldn’t rent the moving van fast enough.
They had prepared the kids as best they could, and it was fair to say that both Matthew and Gillian were over the moon about their reconciliation. But there really hadn’t been a way to prepare themselves for the strange combination of nervousness and excitement that both Dana and Allie felt once Dana’s bags were unpacked.
Allie found him sitting on the bed beside his empty duffle bags, gazing around at their bedroom and at his bureau, which was now back in the place it had occupied a year ago. She came in and sat on his lap, something she hadn’t done in years. “Are you okay?”
“Just soaking it all in.”
“Do you want to be alone?”
“Not a chance.” He kissed her.
Allie looked around at the room. “Maybe we should move the furniture around or something. Or paint the room.”
“Sounds good.” Dana smiled. “Just not orange.”
She grinned. There was a moment of silence between them. “So… ” she said.
Dana laughed. “You want to redecorate now?”
She hit him with a pillow. “No. I mean, so now what?”
The kids answered that for them as they both bounded in and leapt onto the bed.
“Now, this. Just this.” Allie answered her own question as the four of them rolled around in a giant group wrestle.
————
Matthew and Gillian were in bed. It was nine o’clock—a little late for dinner—but Allie and Dana had decided that once or twice a week, they would wait until the kids were in bed to eat. Whether it was pizza or a meal they made together, they were going to unplug and sit across the table from each other. Allie lit the candles.
“So you’re really okay with Nantucket?”
Dana smiled. In the candlelight his face looked ten years younger. “You kidding? It sounds like the perfect way to kick off a new beginning.” He uncorked the wine. “Nantucket is ours.”
“I know.” Allie smiled back. “But I meant, are you okay with the whole gang on Nantucket with us?
Dana poured wine into a glass. “I’m okay with anything right now. Life is good.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” He poured wine into the second glass.
“For your enthusiasm about spending a week with the bride’s side.”
He walked around the table and wrapped his arms around her. “They’re my friends too.”
She melted into his arms. “That may be one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”
He looked down at her in his arms. “Oh yeah? Well sit down and drink your wine. I’m just getting started.”
————
The last day on the island. The house was stripped of personality; bags were packed, beds were bare, the refrigerator was empty. The morning routine of loading on the SunSense and toting coolers, chairs, and sand toys down to the beach—once completed in lightning speed and with prancing energy—was heavy and tinged with melancholy. The weather remained impervious to the mood on the beach however; the turquoise blue sky fluttered like a kite above them as they dove into their last rendezvous with the ocean. For this year at least.
Five-year-old Juliette and three-year-old Maggie—her peach fuzz covered with a blue baseball cap—were on a mission. In order to distract them from their last-day pout, Gavin had challenged them to create the best sandcastle of the week, and so with their mouths pursed in determination, they were hard at work on their project, while baby Rosie, who was sitting on a blanket near them, tried her best to eat each new turret. Megan and Gavin were elbow deep in wet sand helping to fill buckets and shore up the sides of the ill-fated structure.
Matthew, bobbing out in the water, was gleefully high-fiving the approaching waves on a bright yellow boogie board, with Dana bodysurfing and coaching enthusiastically along next to him.
Tess and Allie were lounging on red and white striped beach chairs, chatting and watching Gillian intently hunt for shells. Jared had just collapsed on the big blanket next to them after lugging bags of chips and a huge cooler of cold drinks down from the house.
Tess nodded in the direction of Zoe and Drew, who were holding hands and leisurely strolling back up the beach after a long walk. “They’ve been such good sports about all the kids.”
“I think that Zoe puts on a good show of indifference, but secretly she likes kids,” Allie said.
“They seem good for each other, don’t they?” Tess said.
“He’s a great guy,” Jared said.
“Do you think they’ll end up together?” Tess said.
“I don’t know,” Allie said, turning the idea around in her head.
“He seems perfect,” Tess said.
“I wonder what his story is?” Allie said almost to herself as she closed her eyes and lay back in her chair. The sun and the quiet seeped into her and she melted into herself. She didn’t feel the need to get busy, to make some noise or make something happen, and when she opened her eyes again, it was with peace, not with panic. She looked around at all her friends and family on the beach
and felt a rush of warmth, of gratitude, of love. Shading her eyes with her hand, she focused on Dana in the water with Matthew, and watched them surf the green waves. She couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could hear their joy float up and into the roar of the waves and the screech of the seagulls.
She took a deep breath of the salty sea air and looked at Tess. “I’m going in.” She pushed herself out of her comfortable chair, walked down to the water’s edge, and dove into the cold waves. When she surfaced, she aimed for Dana and swam out to join him.
THE END
Acknowledgments
This book is a years-long love and endeavor. I would like to thank everyone who helped me write and publish The Truth is a Theory.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband Steve. Thank you for your quiet support and your unfailing patience in all things but especially for the many (many) times that I was absorbed in my writing and basically, lost to the world. Most importantly, thank you for giving me your heart and cradling mine.
I want to thank my kids, Sam, Katie, and Jack. To say I adore you does not even begin to capture it. Your laughter lights up my world; your hugs stop time for a sweet moment. Thank you for being uniquely you.
Thank you to my parents, for their unabashed, unedited love and support. Thank you for teaching me what determination looks like, and for the invisible yet palpable scaffolding of safety and love.
I am forever grateful to my friends, whose unconditional love and laughter has buoyed me more times than I can count. Thanks for making me a better person, a better listener, and a better “sharer”. Special thanks to Kirsten Bushick and Kirsten Krinsky for reading this book in its infancy, and offering genuine encouragement and honest, red-ink edits.
Thank you to my editor Fran Lebowitz for her thoughtful insight and honest critique. Thanks to Kevin Barrett Kane at The Frontispiece for his beautiful book design and general guidance. Thank you Harry Groome for offering invaluable wisdom and experience.
Thank you to Dr. Sue Johnson, who created a life-changing model of couples therapy, Emotionally Focused Therapy. Even though I wrote this book before I ever had heard of EFT, my intense training in this model helped me to see what I was writing about and better describe the negative cycle in Allie’s marriage. Thanks also to Sue Johnson for the idea that sometimes we can protect ourselves so well from hurt that we end up all alone.
Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered the book during the month-long Publishizer campaign in 2018. Your genuine enthusiasm gave me the confidence and support to fulfill my dream of publishing The Truth is a Theory. Special thanks to all those who pre-ordered 5 or more books:
Brian Abraham, Maria Arakil, Nahla Azmy, Tracy Bennett and Bob Bristol, The Breen Family, Brian and Susannah Bristol, Steve Bristol, Ted and Nellie Bristol, Christine Brown, Eugenie Brunner and Paul Egan, Kirsten Bushick, Robert Carder, Caryl Capeci, Lisa DeMarino, Mimi Drummond, The Elfland Family, The Eyl Family, Elizabeth Gift, Wanda Gilhool, Harry and Molly Groome, Karen Halls, Erica Hanson, Matt Hartnett, Ben and Lizzie Lewis, Tyler Lewis, Maria Lorditch, Donna and Mark McDonnell, Cheri Mitchell, The Moriarty Family, Fritz Plickert, Hans and Sandy Plickert, Lindsay Schwartz, MaryBeth Shay, Scott Sodokoff, Meg Soriano, Laura Spiller, Donna Usiskin, and Linda Weber.