‘All we seem to do is bicker.’
She humphs. ‘Isn’t that what married couples do?’
‘But it’s overeverything. Last night we argued about who accidentally sat on the remote so it changed channel. I wasn’t anywhere near it, but Jess swore it wasn’t her, and that made no sense to me, especially as she’d just sat down again after getting up to get a glass of water, and before you know it, we’re both glowering at the fantasy boxset we’re bingeing. And it’s like that every night. We sit there, in the same room, watching the same thing, but we’re not really together.’
Elena starts unpacking her bag of things that help her pass the time on these evenings. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
He sighs. ‘Sometimes I feel that even the way I breathe annoys her.’
Elena chuckles. ‘I’ve been married myself, remember? It probably does. Sometimes … ’
For some reason, he can’t find it funny. ‘I can’t see a way out of it. That’s why I’m more and more sure that getting her to sit down and talk with her mum will help.’
Elena picks up her knitting and her needles clack for a minute or two. He can tell that she’s thinking something over. Eventually, she looks up at him. ‘You know it’s not your responsibility to fix her, don’t you?’
He makes a face. ‘That’s not what I’m doing.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. I’m just trying to, you know … help her.’
‘I understand that. That’s who you are. And you know I appreciate your support, keeping me company while all this … ’ she indicates the pole, tubes, and machinery delivering the chemicals into her body ‘… is going on.’
‘Good. That’s why I’m here.’
‘And I know you want to support Jess, which is wonderful, but nobody wants to feel like somebody else’s project, let alone thinking their partner sees them as broken, needing to be repaired.’
Now he’s starting to feel irritated with this woman too. ‘I told you, that’s not what this is.’
‘Sure … Okay. But maybe ask yourself, what is it? What’s fuelling this drive to bring Jess’s mum into the picture, to heal things between them? Can you honestly say that’s not part of your motive?’
‘You and I have talked about that subject in depth over the last few months. I haven’t held anything back.’ And it’s been so refreshing, he thinks. There’s so much he holds back, mainly because Jess has so much to carry already. It would be cruel of him to ask her to carry his stuff too. ‘You know that all I want to do is make her happy.’
Elena’s needles start moving again. ‘All you can do is work on how you show up in the relationship – not you solving everything else you think is a problem in her life.’
‘Hey!’ he says softly. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘I am on your side.’ She ends with a Spanish word he doesn’t understand but guesses means something along the lines of ‘idiot’. ‘But answer this question: is it that you want to make her happy, or that youneedto make her happy?’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘Not necessarily. When it becomes a need, it becomes more about you, about the role you assign yourself, rather than about her.’
She’s talking nonsense. ‘That’s just semantics. What it boils down to is: if we can’t make each other happy what’s the point? We’re supposed to be a team.’
‘Which brings me back to what I have been saying for weeks. You need to talk to her.’ She pauses while she does something tricky with her needles. ‘But I think you’re finding excuses to put it off.’
‘Ouch.’
‘You need to tell her what you are feeling, but also how you feel about her.’ She turns her focus back to her knitting, smiling to herself, and lets the silence sit. He knows she’s waiting for him to talk. This is a tactic of hers, something she does when she feels he needs to dig deeper. It’s actually quite annoying.
‘I suppose I don’t know how to say it. I’m not good at big romantic declarations.’
‘Felix was all about those – how did you say it? – big romantic declarations. It didn’t help any. They’re nice in the moment, but they don’t matter if the day-to-day relationship doesn’t live up to that, if it’s full of tiny negatives that outweigh the big positive, if you know what I mean?’
He frowns. ‘IthinkI do.’
‘It’s the small moments that count, Luke, being a team on the ground together rather than one of you being up on a pedestal. If I were ever to get married again … ’ she glances up at him, meets his eyes, then returns to her knitting ‘ … I do not want a man who promises undying love and showers me with red roses, even though those things are nice. I would much rather have a man who told me I was his best friend. That’s the foundation for everything. That’s the kind of man, the kind of relationship, I want in the future.’
