Why was I suddenly not enough for you?
What if I fail you again?
A hard rush of love and pain fills me.
It’s an unrealistic urge, I know, this need to protect my wife from everything. But it will never go away. I felt it the minute I saw her, and now it’s part of my blood. I even hate that I wasn’t there for Liv all those years she was alone. When her godforsaken mother failed her, when bastards abused her, when— “Dean?” Her voice slides through my bitter thoughts.
I take a breath. “I’m booking us into a hotel.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be easier on you. I don’t know how often Helen will be at the house, but there’s less chance of running into her if we’re not staying there. Not to mention my mother and sister.”
“No.” Liv shakes her head. “If we go to a hotel, your mother will be upset and… no.”
Irritation spreads through me. “I don’t want you under any stress.”
“Then don’t create any by trying to… to isolate me, Dean.” She gives me a mutinous look. “Who do you think your mother will blame if we leave the house? Me. And she’d be right, because we all know you wouldn’t stay in a hotel if you were here alone.”
Shit.
“Please, Dean.” Liv puts her hand on my chest. “Please don’t be upset. I need to do this. And you need to let me.”
“We’re only staying until my father is out of the hospital.”
“We’re staying as long as your parents need you.”
None of my family needs me anymore. That’s the reason I’ve distanced myself from them. The reason I chose Liv. If I had to do it all over again, I would. The exact same way.
I pull open the passenger side door, then go around to the driver’s seat. I still don’t know what I did to fuck things up so badly with Liv last year. It wasn’t just keeping my first marriage a secret, because things were bad before I told her the truth.
And the fact that I don’t know what went wrong makes me even more afraid that it could happen again. Like a punch you don’t see coming.
Helen is gone by the time we get back to my parents’ house. My mother and sister are out on the back terrace. I persuade Liv to go and rest for a while, then I head into the library.
My brother’s telephone number is scribbled on a pad beside the phone. An automated voicemail answers after I dial.
“Archer, it’s Dean. I’m at the house. Mom has been trying to reach you, so call as soon as you get this.”
I hang up and turn to the computer. An email from Nancy the real-estate agent appears in my inbox.
Crap. Almost forgot about the house for sale.
Dean, there have been a few more showings, so we’re expecting multiple offers. Do you have mortgage preapproval yet, if you’re applying? Must talk down payment. Call me soon.
I try not to dwell on Liv’s reluctance about buying a house. I get where it comes from. It’s the reason I agreed to stay in that apartment for so long. Because Liv wanted to, because she never learned how to feel secure living in one place, because she’s scared something will happen and we’ll have to leave.
But now everything has changed.
I dial Nancy’s number and explain that I’m in California for the next week or two.
“If you want to make an offer, we should do it today,” she tells me. “There were three showings this morning alone.”
“Email me the papers to sign. I’ll fax them back to you this afternoon.”
We discuss the offer, and she agrees to write it up. I hang up the phone and go back to the living room. My mother and sister are still sitting on the terrace, both of them holding take-out cups of coffee they must have picked up on the way home from the hospital.
I go upstairs to my wife. Liv is asleep by the window, her head resting on one of the wings of the chair. I slide one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back. She shifts, but doesn’t wake as I move her to the bed and pull a blanket over her.
I look at her for a minute—the pretty curve of her mouth, her eyelashes feathery against her cheeks, the strands of hair escaping her ponytail.
Before her, I had never known a woman who could make the noise of the world and everyone in it disappear. I’d never wanted to prove myself to anyone the way I did to her.
I liked her too much. Liked the way I didn’t feel cold inside when I was with her. The way I didn’t think about anything except her. I liked that she was a mystery, a maze with numerous winding pathways and secret corners.
And she was such a relief. Though we met in the fall, she was like spring to me, especially after the darkness of the previous year. Everything about her made me feel good.
“It’s beautiful.” One Friday afternoon a couple of months into our relationship, Liv leafed through the pages of the glossy hardcover book I’d written on medieval architecture. A box of the newly published books had arrived at my apartment that morning.
“How long did it take you to write it?” she asked.