“No, not after the thing about his parents.”
“Interesting.” He leaned back in his chair. “You know, most people think the key to a successful relationship is communication. But it’s not. Communication doesn’t have some sort of magical ability to solve problems.” He laced his fingers and observed me. “Problems don’t disappear—most of them, anyway. Heath is who he is and you are who you are. Talking about it won’t change a thing.”
“Then why did we come here? And, might I mention, write you a giant check?”
He chuckled. “What Heath’s doing with me isn’t talking, not exactly. It’s more like a recalibration.” He leaned back. “The trick to constructing an unassailable relationship is to embrace the unsolvable. You ever heard of the wild problem?”
I shook my head.
“It’s from the field of algebra. The wild problem is an unsolvable equation or concept involving classification and graphs and something called a quiver, which I’m not even going to begin to pretend I can explain. The point is, there are unsolvable problems that even the most brilliant among us can’t resolve. They’re in math but also science, philosophy, and art. Everywhere. So why, then, is it that we can’t accept unsolvable problems in human psychology? You can talk about your disagreements with the person that you love until your throats are raw. But it won’t change anything. And it won’t ensure a happily-ever-after.”
“But you want Heath to share his wild problem with you,” I said. “That seems like a contradiction.”
“It’s part of the process I lead my patients through. Jung called it bringing the shadow to the conscious self, an essential part of achieving wholeness. One can’t deal with a problem they can’t articulate. But after that, after you see it for what it is, you must decide how you want to handle it. You can talk and talk about it, circling it endlessly, throwing thousands of dollars down the drain. Or . . .”
I leaned forward. “Or what?”
He mirrored my position, inclining his body toward me. His voice was barely louder than a whisper. “You can pull it close, wrap your arms around it, embrace the anathema you’ve been led to believe by all the experts and book peddlers and TED Talkers that you should erase.”
A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, and the intensity in his eyes sent a wave of prickles over my skin.
“You do this—you embrace the darkness, the treasure of the shadow—until the lines between you and it dissolve and it becomes an ally. Perhaps even an asset.”
The room stilled, and I remembered a rainy Sunday afternoon, several months back. Heath and I were home, and we’d been lying on the floor, watching some action movie I couldn’t even remember now. It had played in the background, a soundtrack of tire squeals and gunshots, as we made love.
Afterward, when he had looked at me, I’d felt that I knew, at last, what it was to be understood and loved—not in spite of who I was, but because of it. In that moment, that hard, hidden vein of metal in me that I’d prayed no one would discover had been exposed. It had been a strange sensation, terrifying but exhilarating, being broken open like that. It felt a lot like standing on the edge of the sheerest cliff in the world.
I cleared my throat. “You’re saying our darkness is what gives us strength.”
He nodded. “It’s our beauty.”
“Our secret weapon in the world,” I said. “So you think I should let Heath tell me everything. And then we can move on.”
He laid his hand on his chest. “Ah, Daphne. You really do understand, don’t you?”
“I think so.” And it was true. I did.
He smiled. “What a surprise you are. What an absolute surprise. You come here my adversary and now look what’s happened. You’ve gone and won my heart.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this, what to say to this man who looked so much like the only father I’d ever known, but who was really just a stranger.
“Would you reconsider—” Cerny said at the same time that I spoke.
“I was just thinking I should get back to my room.”
He hesitated, then gestured toward the door without protest.
I stood. “Thank you. For the talk and everything.”
“The pleasure was mine.”
I walked slowly up the stairs, thinking. I was torn about approaching Heath, the same way I was conflicted about talking to Glenys. Part of me wanted to know more about Heath’s mysterious past. The other part wanted to close my eyes and make it go away. Since we’d had that talk in the bird garden, the atmosphere around the two of us had changed. Things between us felt different, strange and unbalanced in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.
And I was scared if I took things further, we might never find our way back.
In our room, I was greeted by the sound of the running shower. The bathroom door was cracked, and steam poured into the chill air of our bedroom. I tucked the business card into my suitcase and moved toward the bathroom door. I could feel my nerves jangling, stretched taut. I cracked my knuckles, turning back away, scanning the windows. Eighteen panes in all. Eight on the top, ten on the bottom. Eight and ten, eight and ten. I snapped the hair band on my wrist, once, hard, then another time, for good measure. I was safe.
Safe enough to go to the bathroom, strip naked, and join my fiancé in the shower. There didn’t have to be any talking. Not yet. Like Cerny said, Heath’s wild problem, and mine, weren’t going anywhere. And if the doctor was right, we could use them to make us stronger.
I undressed and heaped my clothes on the floor. I stepped into the steam-filled bathroom, so quietly Heath didn’t notice. At least not until I swung open the glass door. When he saw me, he dashed the water out of his eyes.
“Look at you,” he said.
“Same old me.”
“Never. You need to get in here. Now.”
God, I loved the gruffness in his voice. I could feel myself getting turned on by the mere tone of it. I stepped in, and he corralled me in his arms. He was dripping but I didn’t care. He felt warm and perfect.
“Hi,” he rumbled.
I raised on tiptoe, kissed him, and he gathered me close. Held the back of my head and pressed the length of his body into me. His mouth was open and warm, his tongue gentle. I tipped back my head and let him bend over me, enjoying the familiar leap of desire in my belly. We fit together like we’d been made that way, his chest and abdomen lining up with mine. He circled one arm around me, and we staggered back against the shower wall.
“Daphne,” he said into my mouth.
Suddenly, the jet spray caught me full in the face. “Oh, God,” I sputtered, part moan, part laugh. “Not sexy.”
“Hold on,” he said and twisted the nozzle down. Turning back, he lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He kissed me again, and I felt the rush of his breath down my neck. When he entered me, I tipped my head back, reveling in the feeling of him inside me, and the water cascading over us. We fit together perfectly. We always had.
I groaned with pleasure, grinding against him. And he was enjoying it too, his hand under my thigh, fingers probing higher and higher as he kissed me. And then, without warning, he lurched forward, pushing me back against the tile. My head struck the wall, so hard stars burst across my vision.
I would’ve gasped but my lungs wouldn’t work. I wanted to cry out, to protest, but I couldn’t make a sound. I was flash frozen. I blinked a couple of times, trying to wake myself up. Had he slipped?
I opened my mouth to ask, and it happened again—my head slammed back against the tile.