“I’m sorry. I never thought of it that way, but now that you say it, it makes sense. I’ve also looked at some of the album sleeves since I’ve been in the apartment. I know that you named Jane after the Velvet Underground song. It was heartbreaking to read that, Dani. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you then. I’m sorry I wasn’t looking.”
“The first memory we made to that song was good and happy. Do you remember it? It was the first night in our house? I’d rather hold on tothatmemory.”
“Yeah, I do. It was a great night, Dani. You were so fun and vibrant,” he says.
“I still am. You’re just too close to see it.” I take a deep breath and let out an audible sigh. “It’s impossible to want for something you already have, you know? That’s the irony in marriage.”
“Did you cheat on me when we were married?” he says.
“No. Did you sleep with that doctor woman here?”
“No,” he says. “Why is your passwordlovelove6now?”
“It has been that for a long while. You’re becoming a very good detective, Alex. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Well…why six?”
I feel a stabbing pain in my heart. “The two babies, Alex. The babies, the boys, you, and Louie Louie.”
He looks pained by the realization. “Did you name her? The second baby?”
My breath hitches. Before I even begin to answer, tears are streaming down my face. He grabs a box of tissues off the end table and literally throws it next to me on the couch. “What is it? Tell me.” He’s frustrated. I should have told him all of this. We could have mourned together.
“Lucy,” I squeak out, and now I can’t breathe.
“That’s a good one. Can’t beat the Beatles.” He’s getting choked up. This is the extent of the emotion I’ve seen from Alex. “You know what’s sad, Dani? Every now and then I imagine walking them down the aisle.”
I blink and look closer. Alex is crying. I throw the box back at him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him cry…ever. I’m shocked, which is a useful distraction from the conversation about the babies we lost.
“You should have told me that you were thinking about them too. We should have talked about it. What happened to us, Alex? Why couldn’t we talk like this? Whathappened?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I couldn’t contain you, and I couldn’t keep up with you, your emotions, your ups and downs.”
“Why were you trying to?”
“I don’t know anymore.”
“You don’t have to keep up, you just have to stay in the right place. A place where I can always find you. That’s what home is.”
“You still scare me sometimes, Dani. It scares me how much you feel and how much passion you put into everything. I was afraid of what you would do when you were so unhappy. I thought I was doing more by being silent. I didn’t ask questions or talk to you about things because I was terrified of the answers. If I brought up the babies, I knew it would send you spiraling.”
“You don’t know everything thing about me. It’s not spiraling,it’s processing. I might lose it for little while, but I always come back stronger. It would have been worth it to me. Instead, you were silent, which made it seem like you didn’t care. Months before my mom died, you went into a hole, Alex. You wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.”
“I couldn’t look at you. I believed that the rumors about Lars were true.”
“Lars took off and moved, and my mother died soon after. All of the bad was fading away, leaving an empty space for us. Why did we fill it with resentment and disdain instead of love and healing? We’re both to blame.” I look down into my wineglass.
“I checked out when I felt like I had lost control of my family, my house, everything. I hung on to things that weren’t even true and I’m sorry. In retrospect, I should have been there for you when all the accusations were swirling and your mother was dying. I’m sorry, I understand how hurt you were. My vision was skewed. I was looking at us like this tangible object that had been broken beyond repair, and I saw you as the one breaking it. Now I realize that you were the one keeping it together, while I looked on in silence.”
I’m surprised by Alex’s introspection. “Alexander, are you waxing philosophical on love? How do you see it all so clearly now?”
“Something fluid surrounding us, something living in the ether. It’s a scent, a sound, a taste, a feel, memories, laughter, it’s an inside joke only you and I can understand.”
“And we did for so long, didn’t we?”
“We still do, Dani.”
I nod. There were so many things I wanted to tell him. I knew I wanted him back. It wasn’t just our past, it was that we grew and changed through everything and even though we were apart, the space made room for a bigger, stronger love. “At thewedding, I realized, out of everyone in the room, I only cared to talk to you. And at the premier party, I wanted to celebrate with you. We were so good at celebrating.”
