“Iwish you weren’t leaving,” I pout with a gesture toward Tripp’s backpack and his clothing choices, laid out in a messy pile on top of our bed.
Turning his head over his shoulder, his eyes meet mine as a regretful smile pulls across his face.
“If I could have canceled…”
“I know.”
I move to stand behind him, pressing my body against his as I bring my hands to his elbows.
“I’m really gonna miss you while you’re gone,” I tell him.
My hands trail from his elbows to his wrists and back again, massaging at his skin as my cheek presses against his back.
“I need you to come with me,” he says as he pulls open the zipper on his backpack.
He’s gone to this convention with his team every year since his shop opened. Every year, I’ve held down the fort at home. Every year, I’ve missed him for the entire weekend, and every year, he’s come into the house, dropped his bags at the door and wrapped his arms around me so tightly, I could be convinced that he hadn’t seen me in six months.
He doesn’t trust me enough to go without me this year.
I guess I’ve earned that.
“I have clients tomorrow,” I tell him. “Weekends are busy for us. Aislin would have to rearrange everyone’s schedules for me.”
Pulling the case for his tattoo machine out of our closet, his eyes meet mine, firm and serious. “I’m not trying to be a dick, but I’m not asking, Jules.”
He’s been making an effort for me; sleeping with me in our bed, sitting next to me at mealtimes…he told me that he wanted to forgive me, and he’s been putting in so much effort to make sure that I believe him.
With a decisive nod, I let out a breath.
Tripp looks confused, maybe even wounded, as I step past him and out of our bedroom.
When I return with a suitcase from the garage and I drop it next to his belongings on our bed, that confusion is quickly replaced with gratitude.
“What do I need to bring with me?” I ask him, and weight visibly drops from his shoulders.
“The plug for your book thing,” he says with the corner of his mouth ticking up into a grateful smile.
We work together, mostly in quiet, to pack our bags. It’s a loaded quiet; the kind of quiet that holds everything and nothing all at once. If we were still members of the faith, we might be led to believe that it was telling us that we were in the middle of a test.
That these six hours on the road together will serve a purpose greater than proving to my husband that I hear him and that I am committed to earning back his trust.
Six hours in which we’ll have nowhere to go and nothing to do but to face what we’ve gone through and to figure out where we’ll go from here.
If Tripp’s younger brother were here, he might tell us that this is the greatest test that our marriage will face yet.
If his older brother were here, he might tell us that going to this convention together is a mistake.
While it only takes Tripp maybe twenty minutes to throw some clothes into his backpack and get his work supplies into a suitcase, it takes me closer to an hour.
Aside from the occasional day trip to the beach with my friends, I don’t travel much. I went to one conference years ago when I opened my salon, and it was the most nerve-racking event I’d ever been to. It was admittedly a great way to get my name out and to bring in customers – some of whom are still my regular clients – but I didn’t think that I’d ever go to one again.
When I’ve finally finished putting my things together and Drumstick’s needs are take care of for the weekend, Tripp carts all of our things out to the garage to load them into the back of our waiting Forester.
It could be worse; we could have gotten the compact that I’d tried to talk him into instead; but we wanted a big family, and an SUV works better for car seats and big kids than a compact does.
“Ready?” He asks as he pops his head in through the garage door. “Drive through somewhere and get on the road?”
I nod with a smile, following behind him to the car.
