Moonlight Over Manhattan(94)
“You don’t talk about her very often.”
“There’s not much to talk about. She’s my ex-wife. We tried. We failed. That’s it.”
He condensed it into a few short sentences. A few weeks ago she might have left it at that, but she wasn’t the same person she’d been a few weeks before. “Why do you see it as failure?”
“I didn’t win any awards for husband of the year.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Did I mention that I love your new haircut?”
“Good. Why do you blame yourself?”
“Because I was already married to the job. I couldn’t give her the relationship she wanted.”
“But didn’t you meet her when she was filming you in the ER?”
“Yes.”
She lifted herself onto her elbow so she could look at him. “And she fell in love with the handsome hero who saved lives.”
“Maybe, but that isn’t what the job is. Not really. They can make it look glamorous on TV, but the reality is something different.” He lay back against the pillows, taking her with him so that they snuggled together looking at the trees beyond the wall of glass. “Growing up, my dad was my hero. He was a respected part of the community. Everywhere we went, people greeted him. Going to buy a loaf of bread from the store turned into a half-hour trip instead of the ten minutes it should have been. People would stop him and ask him things and I never saw him impatient. Never once saw him turn them away or tell them to see him in clinic hours. If someone was distressed, he was there. Time and time again, I saw him step up. When a kid went under a truck at the County Fair, when a man was beating his wife and the police wanted my dad to go with them. My dad was there. And I wanted to be exactly like him. I wanted to make a difference.”
“Were you ever tempted to work in the community like him?”
“No. Because I wanted my home life to be separate. I didn’t want to bump into my patients every time I left the house. My parents’ marriage worked because my mother understood the man he was, and she never tried to change him, not even when she was scraping burned dinners into the garbage or hosting a dinner party by herself because my dad was out helping someone else. Of course it helped that she was a doctor too.”
“Why would she try and change him?”
“Because that’s what usually happens.”
She asked a question that had been on her mind for a while. “How long were you and Alison together before you decided to get married?”
“A year and a half. Maybe a little longer.”
“And during that time you didn’t stop working?”
He frowned. “Of course not.”
“So she knew exactly what your job entailed when she married you.”
“Your point being?”
“She could hardly blame you for doing the job you’ve always done. She fell in love with you because of who you are. The job is part of who you are. Did she expect you to give it up?”
“No, but I think the reality was a bit more than she expected.”
“And you blamed yourself for that?”
“I worked long hours. Unpredictable hours. That’s a fact. I was unreliable. That’s a fact too. I missed dinner parties, journalist functions she wanted to take me to—she told me after one of our rows that the only thing she could depend on was that I wouldn’t be there for her if she needed me.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have been there for her socially, but if she’d needed you in any other way you would have been there.”
“You seem very sure about that.”
“I am. You’re loyal to your friends and your family. I’ve seen it. And you prioritize. But your job is important. What you do is important. I don’t think you were the problem. I think the way you felt about each other was the problem. A relationship is like a jigsaw, isn’t it? The pieces have to fit together if it’s going to work.” And her parents’ relationship hadn’t worked. The pieces hadn’t fitted. She could see that so clearly now.
His arms tightened around her. “You know a lot considering you’ve never been in love.”
Until now. Harriet stared into the darkness, acknowledging the truth.
She loved Ethan.
It had happened gradually, without her even noticing. Maybe she’d fallen in love with him a little that day she’d first met him in the ER. Not because of the gentle way he’d examined her ankle, but because of the questions he’d asked. He’d been determined not to let her go before he’d satisfied himself that her injuries weren’t the result of any kind of abuse. That was the type of man he was. He was the type of man who would look after his sister’s dog even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. A man who was determined to make a difference in the world, and who would step in front of a friend even though doing so put his own life in danger. The type of man who made friendships that lasted a lifetime, and who could indulge the devil inside himself and ski a double black diamond run.
The type of man a woman could easily fall in love with.
Whenever she’d thought about it, and she’d thought about it often, she’d imagined love would be a gentle, comforting, enveloping feeling. Like bathing in warm water or being wrapped in a blanket. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this. Hadn’t expected the wild intoxication that felt as if she’d inhaled an illegal substance. It made her giddy. It made her want to smile at times where no smile was warranted. When she was feeding one of the dogs or occupied by some mundane task like peeling potatoes.