Turning Point(52)
“The boys look great,” she said quietly.
“Aden had a cold last week, but he’s fine now.” He had told her on the phone, but they were both groping for words in the awkwardness between them.
“It feels good to be home,” she said, feeling like a liar, but she didn’t know what else to say. She handed him the sweater and it was too small. He was taller and wider than she remembered. How could he become so unfamiliar in four short weeks? But she had filled them with another man.
He disappeared from the room then and left the sweater on the bed, while she unpacked her bags. She didn’t see him for the next two hours, when he came back and said dinner was ready. The boys clattered downstairs from their room, where she could tell from the doorway they’d made a mess, and Andy had set the table and made hamburgers on the barbecue, with frozen French fries and a salad. The boys’ favorite meal. It felt like she’d never left. Or like only her ghost had returned. She felt like a prisoner here. She couldn’t even pretend that it was nice to be back. She missed the bistro down the street from the apartment, the friends she’d made in the last month, the streets and buildings of Paris, and Gabriel’s arms around her while he told her everything would be fine. She had promised to text him when she arrived, but she hadn’t yet. She’d been afraid to turn on her phone, and didn’t want Andy to see his texts. She was going to read them later, and answer him when she was alone. She hadn’t done it before dinner because she was afraid that Andy would walk in and ask her who she was texting. Just being in the house with him seemed like a lie. She had built a whole new life in Paris, or planned it, and now she had flown backward in time.
The boys provided ample conversation during dinner, and Stephanie helped Andy clean up afterward. He turned on the TV in the den, and watched a basketball game, and she went upstairs to give the boys their bath and put them to bed. Andy came up when she called him to kiss them good night, and then she found herself alone with him in their bedroom, with all the awkwardness between them, and he looked at her and closed the door so the boys wouldn’t hear them.
“Something’s wrong, Steph, isn’t it? It feels weird between us now.” She couldn’t deny it, but she didn’t want to admit it either. Not this soon. They had left each other on bad terms a month before, and nothing had changed between them. Only now she was in love with another man.
“I don’t know, I guess four weeks is a long time. And things weren’t great with us when I left. You didn’t even say goodbye to me.” But they had spoken on the phone since, though only about the boys.
“I was pissed. I didn’t think you should go. You knew that and you went anyway.” And as he said it, it suddenly hit her that she wasn’t willing to give up a month in Paris for him, for her work, but she was willing to move her whole career to Paris for Gabriel. What was so different about them? Why was she willing to give up so much more for Gabriel than for her husband? But Gabriel made her feel loved. Andy made her feel guilty all the time, and now she really was.
“I thought the trip was important for my work,” she said honestly. “It was an honor and an opportunity.”
“And what I do is insignificant, is that it?” he asked, looking disappointed again, with the familiar angry edge to his voice.
“If you got a chance like that, I wouldn’t stop you. And I know it was a long time.”
“Did you have fun?” he asked. He looked like a kid who hadn’t been invited to the party, and it made her feel sorry for him.
“Some of the time, yes, I did. Some of it was very hard, like the school shooting. It was heartbreaking, but I learned a lot.”
“I was worried about you.”
“I was never in any danger. It was just sad, so many people were killed, mostly children.” He nodded.
“So what happens now? You go back to work? Business as usual?”
“I start on Monday at the hospital. The French crew arrives in two weeks, and I get leave for that. A lot of meetings and demonstrations, hospital tours, to show them our stuff here. It’s an exchange.”
“You’ll be busy.”
She nodded, and even more so with Gabriel. She could see that Andy felt left out, but there was no way to include him now, and she didn’t want him and Gabriel to meet. That was too racy for her, and too stressful.
She went to take a shower then, and got into bed early. Andy was already in bed when she got there, and he didn’t move closer to her when she got in. She turned off her light and slid down between the sheets. He read for a while, and turned off his own light. He didn’t reach out for her or try to touch her, and then she heard his voice in the dark. He sounded scared.
“Did you fall in love with someone else while you were there, Steph?” She didn’t answer for a beat, and then stiffened.
“No…it just feels weird between us now…like we’ve gotten disconnected somehow.” He didn’t answer for a long time. They’d been disconnected for months, or years.
“Let’s give it time to get used to each other again,” he said softly.
She nodded, grateful that he didn’t want to make love to her. She had been afraid he would, and she didn’t think she could do that. But maybe she’d have to. She didn’t know how she would explain it to him so he didn’t suspect anything, but for now she’d gotten a reprieve.