“Comfortable?” he asked, the words barely a whisper. The fighting on the screen had revved up, and the boys didn’t notice. Jenny nodded and shook her hand from side to side to get the blood flowing again.
Adam didn’t say anything more, just settled his arm across the back of the couch. She could feel it behind her, but didn’t ask him to move. Didn’t shift her position. It was just an arm on the back of the sofa; something he’d done a thousand times in their marriage. Just as she had taken up the long side of the sofa a thousand times. Old habits were hard to stop, even when one of them no longer technically lived here.
She didn’t want to think about that. She only wanted to enjoy this evening. Tomorrow was Saturday; the boys would have football practice in the morning. Then grocery shopping and meal planning for next week. She should probably mow the lawn one last time, make sure the grass was low so that any falling leaves would blow away and not get caught up in their yard. Which reminded her, she should make sure the batteries were charged for the leaf blower. Summer was bound to break one of these days, bringing fall to Slippery Rock.
A wave of exhaustion hit her, the combination of too much food, too little sleep lately and an often-watched movie too much to combat. The last thing she remembered was the character on the screen vowing to save the world, then it was like she was floating. Jenny could hear the characters, could feel Adam’s heat near her on the sofa, but her eyes were too heavy to open, and there was the most delicious gentle massaging feeling at her scalp. Like she’d gone all in at Helena’s Boutique, getting the full treatment instead of the quick cut she’d opted for in the past.
Tension left her body. Thoughts about work floated away. Worries about Adam’s health, how the service dog would fit into their family. What was going to happen to their four-person unit now that Adam was living in the RV. Everything flowed away, and all she could do was lie there contentedly listening to Morgan Freeman’s voice tell the other LEGO characters that they had to fight.
Fight for what? She couldn’t imagine. Everything seemed fine. She was here; the boys were adjusting. Garrett hadn’t brought an attack tornado drawing home in several days. Frankie still asked for her schedule, but he didn’t seem so rigid since they’d talked about pancakes and schedule changes. And Adam... God, it felt good to be here on the sofa with him. Watching a silly movie. His hands playing with her hair, like so many times in the past. Like nothing had ever happened to him. To them.
Only things had happened. Things had changed. No matter how comfortable she was right this second, this movie would end. What happened when the movie ended?
Jenny sat up, needing to put space between herself and Adam. The boys were still focused on the movie, but this wasn’t a movie. Things between her and Adam weren’t settled just because he’d started walking the boys to school. He couldn’t live in the RV forever, and she didn’t trust that if she asked him to move back into the house, any of the changes he’d begun making would continue.
She put her hand to her chest and squeezed her eyes closed. She wanted him to get better. She wanted Adam back. As frustrating as it had been to be married to him from time to time, she wanted him back. Adam put his hand on her arm, but she shook him off.
“I just need a minute,” she said, and slipped out of the living room.
Morgan Freeman’s voice echoed in her mind. You only have to believe. You only have to believe.
Yeah, life wasn’t a kid’s movie about self-confidence. She wiped the counter and put the rest of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher. Then, because she couldn’t think of another reason not to go back to finish watching the movie—and that wouldn’t accomplish anything—she went out to the patio.
She had to figure out what she wanted, without Adam’s hands in her hair, making her wish for things that just weren’t true. She had been frustrated before the accident. She wanted more than to take the kids to school and pick them up. To cook the meals and clean the house. She wanted to go on dates with her husband. There had to be more to life than being a mom and a housekeeper. She wanted the business to expand, but she didn’t want to be the only one working for those changes, either. There had to be some way to be the mom and the businesswoman and the wife.
Didn’t there?
“Hey.” Adam’s voice came from behind her. “Mind if I join you?”
“The boys will notice you’re gone.”
“They wouldn’t notice if a carnival broke out on the street out front.”
Jenny motioned to the chair across from her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Why would anything be wrong?” She didn’t want to talk about this with him, not right now. Not until she was clear about everything first.
“Because you were relaxed for the first time in ages, and then all that tension came back and you ran out of the room.”
God, had she been that transparent? “I just wanted to get the kitchen cleaned up.”
“You wiped the counters after dinner.”
“But then you made popcorn. Plus the grill stuff needed to be prepped for the dishwasher.” And she had needed to get off that couch. Away from Adam’s hands. Away from his presence.
“Those things could have waited until after the movie.”
“Not everything can wait until you feel like doing them, Adam.” Jenny winced. This wasn’t about him. She had to stop pushing everything off on him. This was her mess. She’d been the one to ignore what she wanted. Sure, he’d been the one going out and having fun, but she was the one who insisted on staying home. The situation they were in now was as much her fault as it was his.
Wasn’t it? What if she fell back into that old routine? Where would they be in five more years? She didn’t want to hate Adam, but if she didn’t start saying the things that were on her mind, she might. “Sorry, you didn’t deserve that.”
He was quiet for a long moment, tapping his index finger against the tempered glass of the tabletop. “I probably do. I know I haven’t been a good husband to you since the tornado. I’m trying to do better.”
“I know. I appreciate that.”
“This isn’t only about the tornado, though, is it?”
She didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now. Not when Adam was finally coming out of the shell he’d been hiding in since he woke up in the hospital. Morgan Freeman’s voice echoed in her mind again. “Shut up,” she muttered. A cartoon lecture about being the best Jenny she could be was so out of place at this moment. She needed to support Adam right now. What she needed could come later.
“What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Just...losing what’s left of my mind.”
“Jen, I’m sorry,” he said. His index finger tapped even faster against the glass of the table, and she wanted to scream. Every tap made the muscles in her shoulders tighten, made her feel how close he was to her on the patio, and underlined how far he really was from her.
“I don’t care.” Jenny swallowed. She couldn’t even wish the words back. “I don’t care that you’re sorry. I care that you don’t know what it is that caused all of this. I get it—you’re trying to change. You’re walking the boys to school, and you’re not totally against the expansion at work anymore. But none of that is about me. I want it to be about me, damn it. For once in my life, I want something to be about me.”
“This is all about you.”
“No, it’s not. It’s about you. You haven’t done one thing for me.”
“I sent you flowers to apologize.”
“I hate cut flowers. I’ve never once asked for cut flowers. I didn’t carry them when we eloped. I don’t keep them in vases around the house.”
“You work in the garden all the time.”
“Because I like plants,” she exclaimed, unable to keep the annoyance from her voice. “Rosebushes and flowering
hedges and those annoyingly time-consuming bonsai trees. I like plants, Adam, not cut flowers. We’ve been together since high school—that’s ten years—and you don’t know the simplest thing about me.”
And she was ruining this moment. When she should be calm and collected, she was angry and almost yelling at him. About freaking flowers. Jenny took a breath and willed herself to calm down. “I needed five minutes to myself, just five freaking minutes when the boys aren’t asking me for something, when you don’t need anything, and you had to follow me out here. I don’t want this, Adam. I don’t want any of it. I don’t want to be angry and I don’t want to be alone and I don’t want you to be sick and I don’t want the boys to be sad.” Jenny stood, held her hands out to her sides and shook her head. “I just want to be left alone for five damn minutes.”
Jenny fled. Out the back gate and down the street. She didn’t care where she was going; she just had to get out of there. Away from Adam. Away from the words she hadn’t meant to fling at him. Away from the mess she was making of this. Because he was trying. He’d gone to the dog trainer, was going to physical therapy. He hadn’t come back to work, but he’d been interested in their plans for the first time in months. And she’d yelled at him. When she should have accepted his apology so he would know he was doing what she wanted, she’d been angry and obnoxious and probably ruined any progress the two of them had made over the past week.
She looked around, saw the playground at Frankie and Garrett’s school. She’d made things worse when she could have made them better, and now she had no idea what to do next.
* * *
ADAM WATCHED THE backyard gate for a long moment, but Jenny didn’t come back. Just like she hadn’t come back after their fight about laundry. Through the open windows, he heard the boys laugh at something on the movie. He couldn’t just sit here and believe Jenny would return. He had to fight to make her come back.
He grabbed his phone from his pocket and dialed Aiden’s number. “How do you feel about babysitting?” he asked.
Ten minutes later, Adam walked down the street toward the school. He didn’t know where Jenny had gone, but doubted she’d have headed downtown, not when she wanted to be alone. He rounded the corner and saw her sitting on the little bench on the sidewalk near the front doors. In the twilight, she didn’t look angry. She looked sad.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe he should give her more than the five minutes she’d asked for.
Maybe he should grow a pair and stop hoping all this would go away. He had to face the fact that Jenny might not want him back, that she might not be able to admit that, even to herself. So he continued up the walk and sat beside her on the bench.
She blinked, as if seeing him for the first time. “What are you doing here? Without the wheelchair?”
As painful as it had been to walk the distance from the house to the school, Adam had been determined to do it on his own. He swung the handle of the walking stick he’d found in the RV. Well, mostly on his own. “I did ten minutes on the recumbent bike today at PT. Figured I’d try walking, and before you get mad about that, the walking stick will at least slow the fall if...you know.”
“You shouldn’t have taken that risk.” She clenched her hands in her lap.
Adam reached out, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. “I’ve decided that I’ve been hiding behind the wheelchair and the epilepsy long enough.”
She sighed. “It isn’t about hiding. It’s about protecting yourself.”
“I know that.” He shrugged. “Maybe I was tempting fate. This isn’t your fault, at least not entirely. It’s mine, too.”
“Oh, Adam.” Jenny shook her head, but he kept talking, hoping she would hear him.
“From where I’m sitting, you’ve done everything in your power to hold us together, while I did everything I could to make you walk away. You didn’t walk away, and I’m grateful for that because I love you, Jenny. Saying I’m sorry isn’t enough, and I know that. And you don’t have to love me back, although I kind of hope you can. Some day.”
“Loving you has never been the problem. Loving you has always been the easy part.”
She didn’t say she loved him, but that had probably been too much to hope for. “What’s the hard part?”
“Talking. It’s embarrassing, being so needy.”
“I don’t think you’re needy.” She was the strongest person he’d ever known. He’d crumbled after waking up in that hospital room. Jenny, on the other hand, had taken all that hurt and fear and stood up to it. Was still standing up to it.
She made a little snorting sound. “I just screamed at you for giving me the wrong kind of flowers. I’m not sure what you’d call it, but I call that being needy.”
He was still in shock that he’d never realized something so simple about the woman he’d loved for ten years. She loved tending plants. She didn’t like watching their blooms die. And he’d never bothered to notice because, in his parents’ relationship, roses were the expected gift for any occasion. “I call it being honest. What else do you want to be honest about?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Adam bumped his shoulder against hers. “Come on, it’s nearly dark. I can barely see you in the dark. Pretend I’m not here and be honest with yourself.”
Jenny was quiet for so long, Adam thought maybe he’d pushed too far, too fast.
“I resented it every time you went off to the Wednesday dart game with Levi, Collin and James without asking if I wanted to come along.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t think I even realized it at first. Levi had gotten hurt and couldn’t play professional football anymore, and if I’d been there, he wouldn’t have talked all that through with you guys. But then you kept playing.”
“And you resented that I went?”
“I resented that you never asked.” She scooted away from him, putting a couple inches between them on the bench. “Okay, honesty. Here we go. Do you know the last time you asked me out on a date?”
Adam considered the question. “Last Christmas?” he asked, and even he heard the hopeful lilt to his voice.
“August 23. A month before Frankie was born.”
The night came crashing back to him in a rush. The hot, muggy afternoon. Jenny so pregnant and miserable she’d taken about five cold showers every day. “It was a Friday night.”
“And about a hundred degrees out, and all I wanted was to stay in that little apartment and sit in front of the air conditioner. You took me out on Bud’s fishing boat, remember?”
“You kept saying you wanted a vat of ice cream that you could swim in,” he said, chuckling. “No one we knew had so much as a wading pool to fill up, so I thought the lake might make help you cool off.”
“You kept diving over the side, trying to coax me into the water, but I was positive I’d never make it back into the boat. I was so miserable.” Jenny tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Did you stop asking me out because I made you so miserable that night?”
Adam blinked at her. “No, I just...kind of thought with Frankie around that spontaneity was out of the question. Then Garrett came along. You were tired, and I was tired. Then Mom and Dad retired and we had the business to think of, too.” He reached across the table, taking her hand in his. Jenny shivered at the light touch. “Is that what you want? You want to date me?”
* * *
IF SHE’D KNOWN that night would be their last spontaneous date, she’d have tried a little harder to enjoy it. And she shouldn’t want him to take her hand now, but she did. Not fifteen minutes ago, she’d yelled at him to leave her alone, and now all she could think about was touching him. She had to be some kind of lunatic to be ping-ponging her way through life like this.
“Do you?” he asked again, his voice quiet in the still night.
/> No. Yes. God, she wanted more of her husband’s attention. Was it so much to ask?
“I want—” She blew out a breath. “This isn’t all your fault, Adam, it’s me, too. There were things you did that annoyed me before all of this—” she waved her hand between them “—and there are probably things I do that annoy you. But you disappeared on me. I didn’t complain, not even when you shut me out. I kept going to work, and raising the boys, and trying to get you well, but you weren’t there. You disappeared on me.”
“I’ll fix it, Jen.”
“You can’t. Before, it was me, letting you do whatever it was you wanted to do while I had diapers and cooking and groceries and work. I wanted to be part of the fun bits, not just the work bits.” She shook her head. “But you can’t follow me around all the time, asking what I want or what I need or if I’m okay, because sooner or later you’re going to resent the fact that you’re only taking what I want into account.”
“So what do we do?”
She had to figure out how to ask for the things she wanted, and she had to learn to trust that when he said he wanted to change he actually would change. She couldn’t do that sitting on this bench with him.
“I took you for granted before. I won’t do that again,” he said.
“And I didn’t share what I needed with you. I’ll try to stop doing that.”
“I hate living in the RV.”
“I like it when you play with my hair.”
He smiled at her, and for the first time, Jenny thought maybe there was a chance the two of them could straighten this out. She’d loved him since she was a kid. She could give them both a little more time to grow up.
“It has to be both of us this time, or it’s not going to work.”
“I’m in if you are,” he said.
“Okay.”
Adam began walking toward their house. “Let’s go see if the boys—”
“Oh, my God, the boys. We left them alone at the house.” Jenny nearly tripped over her feet as she realized they’d left the boys alone, but Adam’s hand was steady on her arm.
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