Two square black armchairs sit in front of the tall windows in the Newbury Street office. Hannah enters the room first and decides to sit on the chair that Adam usually occupies.
“This is different,” Elias, their couples’ therapist, notes as he closes the door. He’s a slight middle-age man, with thinning white hair and quiet, unobtrusive movements.
Hannah looks at Elias, then her husband, then across the street at the Church of the Covenant.
“I guess I’ll get current.” Adam keeps his gaze on his hands.
She flinches at the phrase.
“I haven’t acted out. I’ve been going to my meetings. Aside from an episode we had Wednesday before Hannah went to her group, it’s been a smooth week.”
Elias shifts his gaze equally between the two of them. “An episode?” he asks.
“I thought it would be nice to come home at six before Hannah left. I wanted to spend a little extra time with the kids.” He looks at the bookcase as he speaks.
Two minutes in, and she already feels enraged.
“He didn’t follow the schedule.” She looks into Elias’s eyes. His slight nod tells her he understands, and for a moment that calms her.
Adam shakes his head. “It was never clear that I couldn’t come home at six. Granted, I normally get home around seven, but I knew she was leaving so I didn’t think it mattered.”
“You knew I hired Gabby to come at six, so how could it not have been clear?”
“Yes, I knew Gabby was coming, but you were leaving and you didn’t say anything about me not being able to come home early. I didn’t think it would hurt to see the kids an hour sooner.”
She sighs, exasperated. “But that wasn’t the plan.”
He smacks the arm of the chair. “I know it wasn’t the exact plan, Hannah, but can you bend just a little?”
“Oh, right, because I’m so inflexible.” They haven’t even been here five minutes and already the battle is gearing up to bloody.
“Do you feel like the boundaries your wife has set are unreasonable?” Elias’s voice is soft.
“Overall, not really. I understand why she needs them. But I don’t think I was breaking a boundary on Wednesday.”
“But you were,” she says. “It was clear you weren’t supposed to come home until seven.”
“Hannah, I get that now. It was also clear that you were going out. So I’m sorry if I just don’t understand what difference it made.”
“I know I probably sound like some sort of control freak, but you both know why I need these rules. It isn’t exactly how I would have chosen to live my life.”
“I think what your wife is trying to say is that she needs you to understand her,” Elias says.
Adam glances at his hands. “It’s not as if I’ve been breaking the rules. I’ve been respectful of what she wants.”
“I can’t do this,” she says. “I can’t keep getting into these bickering matches.”
“This can feel like slow work,” Elias replies.
Adam shifts so that he faces forward. “Maybe it would help if we spent more time together. Without the kids.”
His request might sound kind and sympathetic to an outsider, but to her it feels like an assault.
“I’m not ready.”
“I know you’re not ready to be alone with Adam at home,” Elias says. “What about meeting somewhere more public? Would that feel safer?”
“Like a men’s room?” Her words are quiet, so it takes a moment for the dig to sink in.
“And you wonder why we’re not getting anywhere?” Adam says.
“I’m not ready for a public place,” she tells Elias.
“Understood. But it might be something you want to consider in the future.”
Adam’s brow is creased. He keeps shaking his head as if he can’t believe how unreasonable she is.
“I come in here wanting to work through things, to make them better, but instead I feel…” She takes a water bottle from her purse and opens it. “More out of control.”
“Is that how you feel when Adam doesn’t follow the rules?” Elias asks.
She nods, takes a sip of water, but has trouble swallowing. She doesn’t want to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Adam tells her. “I’m trying.”
She glares at him. For a second their gazes meet. “Trying what exactly?”
“I’m going to therapy and groups. I’ve been doing a lot of writing with the steps. I call my sponsor twice a day. I tell you every move I make.”
“Except when you don’t, and you come home when I have a babysitter planned.” Hannah feels tears welling. She takes a deep breath. Control, she tells herself.
“I think what your wife is asking isn’t so much about Wednesday night but more to do with understanding how frightened she is.”
“I’m asking that she understand that I’m trying as hard as I can,” Adam replies.
“Okay.” Elias looks at Hannah. “Can you hear what he is asking for?”
She slams the bottle on the small table that sits between the chairs. Water spills. “What I need you to understand is that I feel anxious all the time. Nothing is the same. I go out with my friends, who don’t know any of this, and they tell me I have the perfect life. I want to laugh in their faces. It’s such a farce. But I smile and pretend that I’m as lucky as they think I am. I can’t look at my mother without wanting to cry. But I’m not about to tell her what’s really going on. She’d never speak to you again.”
Adam doesn’t shy away from looking at her now. “I get it,” he says.
“No, you don’t. What you don’t get is that every little fucking rule you break, however well intentioned, feels like you’re breaking our marriage vows again. That’s what you don’t get. If this were a normal marriage it wouldn’t be a big deal, obviously, if you came home an hour early. But it’s not a normal marriage, no matter how much I wish it were.” She dabs her eyes with a tissue.
“It’s upsetting for you not to feel understood,” Elias says.
That makes her cry harder. She hates that the man she still loves, who’s only two feet from her, doesn’t reach over to hold her hand and tell her he understands how alone and ashamed and petty he’s made her feel.