Ethan’s big hands are firm on my back, holding me against him. Heart to heart. His chest rumbles with a contented sigh and he stands, taking me with him, and lays us both on the narrowbed. He’s right. It squeaks. We lie still, careful not to move but enjoying the feel of our bodies pressed together.
“I’m sorry for the things I said to you on the drive back from Bangalay,” Ethan whispers, his fingers trailing gently up and down my arm.
“That’s okay. I understand you’re still grieving.”
“Grieving? Yes. I am. I suspect I always will be. But it’s more than that. It was more than grief talking. It was guilt.” He pulls the blanket out from under us and drapes it across our steadily cooling skin.
“Guilt?”
“I loved my wife. I did my best to be the husband she needed. Wanted. But I so often fell short. I let her down. And that eats at me.”
With my head resting on his shoulder, I can feel the tension in his neck and jaw.
“How do you think you let her down?”
“We’d been together since we were teenagers. She wanted to get married years earlier, but I always had an excuse. I need to finish my master’s. I’m going on a dig. I’ve just started my PhD …”
“Those are all legitimate reasons.” Ethan is an ambitious man, and all that sounds reasonable to me. Heartbreaking, as it turned out, but reasonable.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry her.” His eyes lose focus, as though he’s no longer here; he’s back there. Making those choices he now regrets. “But I knew for her, marriage meant having children. All she wanted was to be a mum. And I wasn’t ready to be a dad.”
“And you didn’t feel you could tell her?”
“I’m not sure I even understood it myself at the time. It’s only hindsight, and I guess watching my brothers have babies, that has clarified it for me.”
“So you put off marriage, and then she”—I pause, searching for the right words—“passed away before you could have children.”
“Yes. And I feel like I stole something from her. Stole her dream of being a mum. I loved her, but I let her put her dreams on hold for mine.” Regret is rich in his voice. This is why I can trust him. Because he can acknowledge his mistakes. Learn from them.
“Oh, Ethan. There was no way you could’ve known what was going to happen. You were both still young. You had every reason to expect you had years ahead of you for parenting.”
“And yet we didn’t. I know all that in my head; it’s my heart that’s taking a while to catch up. To forgive itself.”
“You know, you fulfilling your dreams is no less valid than your wife fulfilling hers.”
“It hasn’t felt like that. But you’re right.” He pauses. “The other day at Saqqara, when you said you weren’t sure about ever having children. Did you mean it?”
“Yes. I did. I could blame my shitty childhood, but if I’m honest, there’s too much I want to do to even think about kids. Because I know what being a neglected kid feels like, and I never want to be that parent. So if I have them, it won’t be till I’ve done all the things I want to do.”
Ethan is silent for a long time.
“I know I said I was okay with us not telling Jennifer. I understand why you don’t—didn’t?—want to. But that was before. I don’t think keeping this to ourselves is going to work, Sadie. Please think about giving us a chance to see where this could go. About talking to Jennifer when we get back from the dig. Seeing if there’s some way we can work it out.” Ethan’s muscles tense as though he’s waiting for a blow.
It’s my turn to be silent for a long time. He’s right. Denying our attraction—our feelings—is not going to work. And I no longerwant to. Admitting it, even to myself, brings a lightness to my chest, and I laugh.
“You’re right. We need to tell her.” The muscles under my hand, my cheek, relax. “I want to see where this can go, too.” I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more. Except my career.
“Good. In the meantime, would you mind dialling your dazzle down to, I don’t know, an eight, maybe? So I’ve got a chance of keeping my hands to myself for the rest of the dig?”
“My dazzle? Why? What has it been?”
“I’d been thinking eleven. Then today, you ratcheted it right up to fifteen.”
I’m happy to hear a smile in his voice now. I feel as though, with this conversation, we’ve turned a corner. I know I have. I’m still nervous, but for the first time, I feel like there’s someone I can trust. Someone who will be honest with me. Have my back. Put me first. That’s not something I should walk away from.
“You could do with some dialling down yourself, you know.”
“How about this? We wind it up to fifteen one more time, then hands off for the rest of the dig. Deal?”
