He leaned over her body and unlatched her seatbelt, offering her his hand.
“Come on. I got us a room. You need some sleep, sweetheart.”
She looked up at him, disoriented, her eyes focusing on his face lit up by the interior light of the car. Suddenly it hit her like a punch to the throat.
“My mother.”
He nodded, taking her hands and pulling her from the seat.
Taking a shaky breath, she settled her feet on a gravel driveway and looked around. “Where are we?’
“The Blowin’ Wind Motor Lodge.”
“I don’t know it,” she said, glancing around at the unfamiliar, one-story, roadside motel.
“We’re just outside of Lowville,” he said. “Your bag’s in the room. Come on.”
Putting his arm around her waist, he helped her toward the door that creaked as he opened it. She stepped inside, taking in the wood paneling and shabby olive green carpet. There were two beds covered with navy blue flowered bedspreads, and a TV from the 1980s on a scratched bureau. An air conditioner under a window that looked out at the parking lot hummed noisily, and a fluorescent brightness in the far corner of the room indicated the bathroom. A north country motel room. She’d know one anywhere.
Releasing her waist, Preston closed and locked the door behind her, and then hoisted her suitcase on top of the bureau.
“Do you want the left or right?”
“What?” she asked, still half asleep.
“Do you want the bed closest to the door or closest to the bathroom?”
“Bathroom, I guess,” she said, taking a few steps into the room and sitting on the edge of her bed.
Wringing her hands in her lap, she wondered what time it was. How much time did she have before she had to see her father and sisters, all of whom disapproved of her life, all of whom knew that she’d had no closure with her mother?
Suddenly Preston squatted down before her, his palms comforting on her knees, his tired green eyes looking up into hers.
“Do you want to change?”
She shook her head.
“Use the bathroom?”
Her lip quivered with sadness and she blinked back a fresh onslaught of tears as she shook her head again.
“Elise,” he whispered. “Please tell me what I can do to help you.”
There was only one thing she wanted. Only one thing she needed.
“Hold me.”
His face looked sad, but he nodded.
Standing up, he killed the overhead light by yanking on a pull cord and closed the bathroom door until it was only open a crack. Elise leaned back onto the bed, scooching up until her head found a bedspread-covered pillow. As Preston’s knee depressed the bed to her left, she rolled toward him, pressing her body against his chest as his arms came around her.
Closing her eyes, she leaned her weary forehead against his strong chest, surrounded by the comforting, beloved smell of him, and cried herself to sleep.
***
Eventually he felt her sobs and shudders subside until she settled into a deep and even sleep, curled into him, her fists unfurling under her chin and her breasts pushing against his chest with every breath she took.
I love this woman, he thought. I love her more than anything.
And yet, whispered his heart, you did nothing to hold on to her.
I did! he thought indignantly. I asked her to stay. I visited her.
You pressured her, said the whisper. You threatened her future. You made her choose. She chose safety. She chose her dream, but you forced her hand.
What else could I have done? he demanded.
You could have joined her. You could have been patient with her. You could have understood that the woman you married loved her career, and making her choose between it and you was a losing battle.
She should have chosen me, he thought. She should have loved me enough to choose me.
Maybe you should have loved her enough not to make her choose.
Preston took a deep breath, nuzzling her hair and drawing her as close as possible. For so long he’d laid the blame at Elise’s feet, his anger and self-pity fueling his grudge against her. But now he tried to look at it from a different angle.
Had he forced her to choose? Had he married a woman deeply devoted to her career only to try to wedge himself between her and her dreams on the very first day of their marriage?
What if he had celebrated her opportunity in L.A. and planned to visit her every other weekend during that first movie? What if he had offered to relocate to L.A. to be closer to her? He could have taken the California bar eventually. For so long he’d thought that he was the one ready for marriage and she was the one who got spooked and ran. But in his own way, Preston hadn’t been ready either…because he hadn’t been ready to compromise or bend or respect the very drive in her that had so attracted him in the first place.
More words from his wedding ceremony circled in his head: