“The hell it is.” His eyes harden mutinously. “I’m not leaving you alone. No way.”
My thoughts are spinning, tumbling, but all centered around the growing conviction that this is what we both need.
“Dean, do you remember that trip we took to see the monarch butterflies in Pacific Grove? The monarchs had migrated back from Mexico for the winter. All those eucalyptus trees, alive with orange-and-black monarchs like tiny, stained-glass windows. The air was just filled with butterflies. One of them landed on your shoulder.”
“I remember.”
“And do you remember the guide told us that scientists don’t really know why so many generations of butterflies return to the same place every year?”
“I remember.”
“I think it’s because they instinctively know where home is.”
“So do I. And it’s with you. Not halfway across the world.”
“The butterflies migrate to survive,” I say. “They need to escape the cold. They need nourishment. And once they have that, they always return home.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
I take a breath, trying to find the strength to press forward. “Dean, I’m not asking you to go.”
“What?”
“I’m telling you to go.”
He stops. Turns to stare at me.
“I know you, Dean,” I remind him. “I know you’re burning with the need to defend yourself, to clear your name, to prove that girl is lying. You want to take action. You want to throw yourself into work, hire a legal team, get back into the classroom, host the huge conference… all while worrying about me and our marriage.
“And during all of that, not once will you acknowledge that you’re hurt too. You won’t even realize that you need to give yourself time and space to grieve. And you can’t do that if every day you’re confronted by the reminder of what you think is failure. You can’t do anything here. You can’t.”
He just looks at me. I can almost see every muscle in his body deflecting the truth of my words.
“I want you to do this,” I say. “You have to.”
I know this now too—he needs to be out in the open space of medieval ruins where he can find treasures and relics hidden in the soil. He needs to have discussions with fellow professors about medieval settlements and material culture. He needs to see old friends, drink good wine, visit the museums in Florence, eat fish that tastes like the sea. He needs to remember that life is both transitory and filled with permanence.
“If I go, then you’re coming with me,” he says.
For a moment, I feel myself waver, picturing the two of us escaping to Italy together. Then I shake my head.
“Allie already has my days scheduled for the rest of the month at the bookstore. I’m working ten hours a week at the museum helping organize a new exhibition, and I’m volunteering at the library on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I just took two weeks off from all of that without notice when we had to go to California. I can’t leave right away again. People are counting on me.”
It feels good to say that, so I say it again. “People are counting on me.”
I look down at my phone and hit the reply button on the email. I start typing. This is a tough tactic, but I’m up against both my husband’s stubbornness and his overprotectiveness. The only thing I can do is appeal to his professional reputation and career, both of which are in serious danger.
“What are you doing?” Dean asks.
“Emailing Simon. I’m telling him that you’re going. He’ll announce it to the team, and they’ll all be expecting you. The Cambridge people have applied for funding on your behalf already. You won’t let them down.”
“Liv—”
“Otherwise you’ll stay here stewing and growling, hating every minute that you can’t go to the university and can’t do anything. And you’ll hate it so much you might very well end up doing something to make things worse.”
I finish typing the message and send it to Simon. “Or you can go to Italy, Dean, and see old friends and do what you love to do. You need this. You need to get away.”
I look up at him. A tender ache fills me. My beautiful, strong husband is standing with his shoulders slumped and his face ashen, lines etched deep around his eyes and mouth. Tears sting my eyes.
“I can’t leave you,” he says, his voice a hollow echo.
“You’re not leaving me.” I struggle for a moment with the realization that when he goes, I’ll be alone. “I have things to do too, Dean. I’m going to help Allie come up with another way to save her bookstore. I’ll make Kelsey take me out for margaritas if I start to feel morose. I’ll read picture books to little kids at library story time. I’ll think about you and miss you and talk to you, all the while knowing we’re doing the right thing.”
Silence falls, pulsing with the truth of what I’ve learned and what Dean has yet to acknowledge. Our relationship, our love, cannot and will never be perfect. It will, however, always belong only to us in all its flawed, intense beauty. Perfect in its very imperfection.