“I’ve been doing this for twenty years,” the lawyer says. “I’ve seen it all. I promise, this is the best you’re going to get. Taking your chances on a trial would be foolish.”
My head drops into my hands. My shoulders shake, but the tears don’t come. I cried myself out before we came here, and was left with a dull headache and sharp fear.
Gabriel and the lawyer discuss logistics. For me this is still out of body, a book I could be reading about a wife listening to her husband discuss his impending prison sentence.
“I’ll let you know when the hearing will be. You will show up, and answer the judge's questions. It’s not like what you see on television.”
The lawyer stops me as we’re walking out. “You can’t change the system in a day, Mrs. Woodruff. But you have good ideas. Perhaps you should consider activism.”
His words slide in one ear and out the other. I can’t think of anything but what is happening to my life, the implosion.
Later that night, once we’re home and in our bed, Gabriel reaches for me. For hours we’ve been robots, going through the motions. Picking up a prescription. Making dinner. Doing the dishes. Every motion by rote, every thought sickeningly heavy.
I let him hold me. I’m not angry. There isn’t time to be mad at him. Each tick of the clock is precious now.
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers against my forehead. My automatic response isyes you do, but I’m feeling so many things, good, bad, and downright ugly. I say nothing at all.
Three years. Gabriel will go away for three years, maybe only two.
Only two.
Look at how I qualified that statement with an ‘only.’ It hasn’t begun, and already I’m applying hope to a decrease in duration.
“Avery,” Gabriel whispers my name.
I wait for what he’s going to say next.
“Avery,” he says again, sobbing. He rolls me onto my back, caging me in with his arms. Tears drip off his face and splash my chest. “You should move on.”
At first I’m confused, but then I understand. “What? No.”
His lips tremble. “You’re young. Smart. Passionate. Beautiful. You have so much to offer someone.”
“I’m already giving all that to you.”
“I won’t be there to receive it.”
The tears I couldn’t find in the lawyer’s office are pouring now. “Gabriel, no. We’re married. I’ll wait for you. Three years is nothing.”
Compared to thirty years, three is a blip. But three years is something. It’s holidays and family dinners, waking up alone and going to bed alone. It’s tiny moments in my days, the guy who will cut me off in traffic and the barista who will misspell my name and the funny bone I’ll smack on a corner and the box I can’t reach on the highest shelf and,
and,
and,
the list goes on.
I grip his face, the regrowth of facial hair poking my palms. “I will not move on. Ever. This is a hard situation, but I’m not afraid of hard things. It’s easy to uphold your vows when things are going well. When the money flows and the sex is good and nobody is making life-altering mistakes.” My thumbs stroke his cheeks. “Bonds are forged in fire, and right now, Gabriel, we’re in the middle of a fire. And even you can’t put it out.”
“I started it.” His eyes close. More tears splash onto my chest, sliding down between my breasts. “I’m responsible for the fire.”
He is. But I also wonder how much of a role I played in it all. I didn’t take his history seriously enough. I knew he was drinking, and I didn’t stand in the way. I didn’t beat the drum, sound the alarm, threaten to leave. I maintained his image at the expense of him. Is what happened my fault? No. Did I contribute? Yes.
I kiss him, and taste our tears. “Don’t talk anymore about me being with someone else. I won’t hear it. Got it?”
He nods. He kisses me again, more fiercely. His lips press against mine, giving to me and asking nothing in return. His hands roam my body, and in them I feel his hunger. His sorrow. His apology.
The next day, we learn his court date will be held in two weeks. There’s something about being faced with the stuff of nightmares that makes everything in the present more palpable.
