I feel Dean’s flash of rage. I don’t look at him. A jagged flashback threatens. I tear it apart, fling it aside. Breathe.
“I spent so much energy trying to deal with what happened,” I continue, rubbing my damp palms over my skirt. “Trying to forget. To stop blaming myself. And then when I first met you, I was still trying to figure out who I wanted to be. Who I could be.”
I lift my head to look at him. He’s watching me, his expression unreadable, his posture tense.
“You showed me so much of that,” I say. “So much more than I even knew existed. You showed me how to be free, and what it feels like to be safe and wanted and loved. You showed me how to love. How to stop being afraid. How to fight for what I want. Especially when what I wanted most was you.”
His eyes glitter. I press a hand to my aching chest.
“Then when… when things got so messy between us, I turned to another man.” I swipe at another tear, swallow the bile of guilt. “It was like… like I didn’t know what to do without you. If someone else had been the problem, you would have dealt with it. You would have been strong and protective and just… there.”
I take a breath. “But you weren’t there, Dean, because we were the problem. And I didn’t know how to handle it alone, so I… well. Then the pregnancy... I was conflicted about it, but I wanted to figure out how to be a good mother. I thought I could be, that it would be another way to prove myself, but then the… the miscarriage…”
“And I wasn’t there.” His voice is rough. “Again.”
“You couldn’t have been there! There was nothing you could have done. None of it was your fault.”
“Then why is it screwing us up again? It’s like I told you last December. I don’t know what it is I’m not giving you.”
“You have to let me fail, Dean, and you have to believe I can get back up on my own.”
“I know you can.”
My heart constricts. “But you have to let me prove it. You have to accept that I’m going to get hurt, but also that I can be self-reliant. You can’t always save me.”
“No. I can’t.”
It’s the first time he has ever admitted that. And I don’t want to imagine how much it cost him to finally do so.
A lengthy silence descends, taut with painful foreboding. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know what will happen to us, to him, to our lives.
I can’t imagine Dean being banned from the university. It will make him crazy not to be able to teach or lecture, especially with a spurious investigation going on. He’ll feel trapped, helpless, like a caged tiger leashed with rage.
And what if he sees his students and fellow professors in town, what if they start asking too many questions, what if Maggie makes an accusation that ends up in the university newspaper, and Dean is unable even to defend himself…
A sudden dizziness hits me. My heart is beating too fast.
Before I can think too much, I grab my cell phone from my satchel and scroll through email. I find the message Simon Fletcher CC’d to me.
Dean,
The Cambridge team will be here soon and specifically asked for funding to lure you as an advisor on the excavation of site 4000. Plans starting in Feb and continuing into summer. Lots of folks looking forward to seeing you again and correcting your abysmal Italian pronunciation.
Did I tell you James Fenton from the U. of Glasgow is here? Says he owes you a beer from some ancient bet. Apartments are basic but comfortable. Weather’s good. Food and wine excellent. Nice break from the arctic Midwest, I’m sure, and you ought to meet Dr. Billings. Make arrangements soon so we know when to expect you.
—SF
I read the message twice, aware of a strange feeling inside. A simultaneous breakage and flowering, like a green shoot pushing its way through a dry seed.
“Simon’s letter.” I look up at Dean.
He’s watching me, his expression suddenly wary. I force myself to say the only thing I can. The only solution.
“I want you to go to Altopascio.”
“No.”
In my entire life, there is not much I’ve been certain about. The ground has always shifted beneath my feet. I’ve had a hard time planting myself firmly on it, trying to figure out in which direction I should or even could grow. I’ve questioned everything—my mother, myself, my choices, my decisions.
But I got Dean right. From the beginning, I knew I could trust him, trust myself with him. I knew we were meant to be together. I knew our love would burn as bright as the stars, no matter how dark the night became.
I know that still.
“I want you to go.” My voice is stronger, more resolute.
“I’m not leaving you, Liv.”
“No, you’re not.” I approach him, reaching out to rest my palm on his chest. His heart beats steady and strong against my hand. “But you need to heal, and the only way you can start is to get away. You can’t stay in Mirror Lake. You can’t be near the university. You can’t be around me.”
“Liv, you just had a miscarriage!” He pulls away from me in frustration.
“We saw Dr. Nolan last week. She said everything is okay now.”