‘I’m tough.’
‘You are bloody not!’ Andrew laughs gently. ‘You’re the biggest softie I know.’
‘I’m tough when it comes to Leo,’ I say. ‘I’ve had to be.’
‘This might mark a new chapter for you two.’
‘If he’s stuck in a wheelchair, you mean?’ I speak sharply to my father-in-law, but Andrew’s expression doesn’t change. He’s well accustomed to moody teenagers, so my defensiveness is nothing new to him. ‘I refuse to think of Leo having a permanent disability as a positive. If he can’t work, he won’t cope. We have to get him back on his feet.’
‘Sometimes opportunities come to us wrapped up as problems, Molly.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t celebrate this. He would be miserable.’
‘I think you and I both know that if he recovers and goes back into the field, one of these days he’ll be coming home to us in a coffin. He has had no rationality whatsoever about the risks he has taken in the last few years. He can’t regulate himself. Maybe fate is going to regulate him instead.’
I’m not sure how Leo would react if he knew his dad thought he was better off in the wheelchair, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be good for him. Andrew sighs and hugs me.
‘I never wanted to pry, love, but I’ve seen how unhappy you’ve been. This really could be a fresh start, couldn’t it?’
I think about Andrew’s comments as Leo and I travel back towards the rehabilitation clinic in the van. Do I even want a fresh start with Leo? And would I take one if it came at the cost of him being anchored to me – not by choice, but because of an injury?
I am softening towards Leo, just as I can see his affections growing towards me. But there’s not just water under the bridge behind us, there’s a veritable flow of toxic waste in our history and Leo’s arrogant display in the basketball gym is a brutal reminder of the things about him that I only discovered after we were married. There is a side to him that I despise, just as there are aspects to him that I will always love, but at the end of the day we are done and the sooner I can figure out how to tell Leo that, the sooner I can extricate myself from this pretence that everything is okay.
Leo has to get well; he has to go back to work and his life. What would he be left with otherwise? Almost nothing now and I couldn’t wish that on him – I just couldn’t. I take a deep breath and I turn to face him. He notices my movement and he speaks before I get a chance to.
‘About earlier––’
But I know where he’s going with this and I wince. ‘Let’s just forget about it.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘We need to talk about this. I was a jerk back there, and I’m really sorry. This life I have now is just so different to the one that I remember, and all of these changes here are good, but it doesn’t feel like my life anymore. I don’t want to push you away, Molly – I know that I need you. Will you forgive me?’
‘You didn’t need to say that,’ I say, and my words are stiff with guilt, as if he has read my private thoughts.
‘No, I really did,’ Leo sighs. ‘I am trying to take all of this in my stride, if you’ll pardon the pun, but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced and I just don’t know how I could have survived it without you. I can’t afford to treat you like shit when you’re the best thing in my life and I’m going to try harder, I promise you.’
If the last few years have built calluses around my heart, these simple sentences wipe them away effortlessly, and I feel the pull of our connection all over again. Two minutes ago I was ready to dust my hands and walk away – again – and all that it has taken to suck me right back in is another hint of humility from Leo. That’s not because the words are magic: it’s because the love I have for him is alive and well beneath the surface pain. I see that with sudden, startling clarity. I have been and I am angry. I have been and I am bruised. I have been and I am jaded. None of that is fixed. But the reason I went to Rome – the reason I stayed in Rome – the reason I am running myself into the ground to help Leo find his memory again isn’t because I feel obligated to: it’s because I want to. For all the hurt that lies between us, I want the very best for Leo. And if there was some miraculous chance to start our life together over again, I would give everything in my life to be able to take it with both hands.