‘I am going back. You and Lucien can continue your walk, I’ve had enough for today.’
But Leo and Lucien are right behind me the whole way – despite the wheelchair I still can’t outrun him and even that is frustrating. When I reach the gate to our courtyard, I grudgingly hold it open for Leo and then wait at the back door, where he unclips Lucien’s lead and gives him a gentle pat. Lucien makes a beeline for Mrs Wilkins’s place and Leo looks at me.
‘Let’s talk,’ he says quietly. He goes to the couch and lifts himself onto it, and I look at him from the kitchen. He is getting stronger by the day – more accustomed to working around his injury – and sitting there on our couch, it could almost be an average day in our ordinary lives and as much as I don’t want to, I love even the thought of that. ‘Love,’ he says gently. ‘Come on.’ I approach him slowly. I sit on the couch, but not close to him. ‘What did I say, Molly?’ he prompts, and I glance at him. How can such an intelligent man be so completely stupid? ‘Is it the wheelchair? Is it too much?’
‘Leo, I don’t give a shit if you’re in a wheelchair! I mean, I do – but only because I know how hard it is for you. It’s not the wheelchair I’m worried about, I promise.’
‘So, what is it?’
‘You’re going to walk again, Leo. I know you are,’ I say, and I can see his bewildered frown at my tone, so I add in a whisper, ‘And then you’re going to go back into the field.’
‘Yes?’ he prompts.
‘It’s that simple, and it’s that impossible: you love your job, and I hate it. There is no middle ground.’
‘So, what do we do about that?’ Leo asks me, frowning. ‘You’re not suggesting I don’t go back to work…’
‘No.’
‘So…’ He’s looking at me as if I have the answer, but if either one of us did, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all. I shake my head.
‘I don’t know, Leo.’
Realisation dawns on his face. ‘This is what the tension between us is about, isn’t it?’
‘Most of it,’ I whisper.
‘This is also why I was never going to marry,’ he murmurs and then he sighs. ‘I just fell so hard for you, I think my brain glitched out.’ I offer him a weak smile, and he leans across and takes my hand. ‘Do we need to figure this out today, Molly?’
I shake my head, and he tugs me towards him. I let him pull me all the way until I’m pressed up against him.
‘Do you want to watch TV for a while?’ he asks softly against my hair.
‘Now I know you have lost your mind.’
I know that there is only so long we can put this discussion off, and I’m conscious of the fact that this was my chance to tell him that we are separated and about everything else that has happened this year – and I have squandered it. But I’m only sorry for a minute because if I had come clean with him, I wouldn’t have been spending the afternoon on the couch in the strong circle of his arms. Sooner or later, this will catch up with me but it looks like I’ll keep on choosing later until it’s no longer possible.
22
Leo – May 2011
Molly tossed and turned in my bed after we left the gym that night. I kept drifting off to sleep but waking again when she moved.
I’d insisted that she help set up for a class when we’d arrived at the gym, but even the simple task of laying out the mats had been maddening to perform alongside her – she moved slowly and put as much energy into complaining as she did working. But later, she drifted off to talk to some of the kids, and every time I saw her, there was no doubt that she was connecting with them. I’d been able to keep track of where she was by listening for the bursts of laughter she gave off. She seemed happy again – brought back to life somehow by the spirit of the kids of my community, and that’s all that I’d been hoping for. When we got back to my place, she’d quietened a little, but she seemed thoughtful rather than sad… But then at two in the morning, I realised that she was still wide awake.
She was lying on her stomach, staring at me in the darkness. I rolled over to mirror her position and reached to rub her back.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Leo,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your childhood.’
‘What?’ I was immediately aghast. ‘Where’s this coming from?’
‘You grew up like those kids I met tonight, didn’t you?’
‘You can’t generalise,’ I said, withdrawing my hand from her back. ‘I grew up black? Yes. I grew up poor? Yes. That doesn’t make them the same as me any more than it makes you the same as the Queen of England because you’re white and you grew up in a big house.’
‘I was not generalising, Leo. I meant only that you had to struggle just as some of those kids do. You saw my childhood. You have an unfair advantage in this relationship because you know why I’m a spoilt brat.’
I laughed, but Molly stared at me.