‘IT WASN’T YOU,’ she replied after the longest time. Her heart ached at the look on his face.
‘You keep saying that, but how can I believe you?’
‘Because it’s true.’ She set her cup on the table and went to sit next to him, drawing his hands into her own. ‘It wasn’t you. It was—’ She broke off, closed her eyes. Could she tell him she couldn’t forgive herself? ‘It was me. It is me.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it’s not. It has to be me. It’s always me.’
She opened her mouth as he pulled his hands from hers and stood, staring at him. But no words came out.
‘Wh...what do you mean?’ she said when she managed to get over her surprise.
‘Nothing.’
‘No,’ she said standing. ‘That definitely meant something. What are you talking about, Aaron?’
When she joined him in front of the glass door—just as they’d stood earlier, watching the rain—she felt his entire body tense. She lifted a hand to comfort him, then dropped it, hating how uncertain things had become between them.
He didn’t answer her question but she had to make him see that it hadn’t been him. And the words spilled from her mouth before she could stop them.
‘I found a lump in my breast.’
* * *
Aaron immediately snapped out of his self-indulgent moodiness. ‘What? When? Are you okay?’
‘Yes. I’m fine.’ But she crossed her arms over her breasts, her hands on her shoulders. Her self-protective stance. ‘It was just over four months ago.’
‘Before you left?’ She nodded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Her eyes lifted to his, but he didn’t know what he saw there. It killed him. Just as he feared his lack of oxygen would if he didn’t catch his breath soon.
‘Because it turned out to be nothing.’
That wasn’t the reason, but he let it slide. It was more information than he’d thought he’d get. And when finally he’d caught his breath he asked, ‘What was it?’
‘A milk duct.’
He lifted his eyebrows as the air swept out of his lungs again. ‘A milk duct?’ he rasped. ‘As in—’
‘No! No,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘Not a baby, no. It was just something that happened. Hormonal.’
He nodded. Tried to figure out why he felt so...disappointed. Was it because she wasn’t pregnant? Or because she’d gone through this hellish ordeal and hadn’t told him about it?
‘You should have said something.’ He left his spot at the door and headed for the drink he hadn’t finished earlier. He downed it, ignoring his coffee.
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
He turned around. ‘Were you worried?’
Confusion spread across her features. ‘Yes.’
‘Then you should have told me. When you’re worried, I should be worried too. That was the marriage I signed up for.’
‘Yes, but sharing my concerns about—’ she threw her hands up ‘—my career isn’t the same as sharing my concerns about my health.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. This is more important.’
‘And you didn’t want to share something important with me?’
‘No, Aaron, come on. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘How did you mean it?’ She didn’t answer him and he nodded. ‘Maybe it’s better if you and I just don’t talk and get some sleep. You can take the bed. I’ll take the couch.’
He spread the throw that hung over the couch over it. Not because he wanted to sleep there—he almost laughed aloud at the prospect of sleeping when things were like this between them—but because he wanted her to realise he didn’t want to talk any more.
Everything she’d said tore his broken heart into more pieces. He could almost feel the shredded parts floating around in his chest, reminding him that he hadn’t done enough in their marriage. That he hadn’t managed to get her to trust him. To tell him about the important things.
She sighed and then switched off the lights again. Moments later, he heard her settle on the bed and he settled on the couch himself. His body barely fitted, but he wouldn’t take the bed if she was there. It gave him some sort of sick satisfaction that she’d be aware of his discomfort.
Or was that sick feeling a result of what she’d just told him?
He’d been there when his mother had found her lump—had stayed with her right until the moment they’d told her she was in remission—and he knew what havoc it wreaked.
Granted, his mother wasn’t entirely the best example of responding to anything with grace. He knew Rosa would be. Or perhaps not, since she hadn’t told him about it. Since she’d run.
Still, he wished he could have helped her through it. After what her mother had gone through—after it had led to her death—he could only imagine how terrified she’d been.
And yet she hadn’t told him.
No matter what Rosa said, he knew that had something to do with him. His mother had blamed him for everything since his birth. The fact that things hadn’t worked out with his father. The fact that his father had walked away from them...
Never mind that he’d never even met the man who’d supposedly left his mother because of him.
‘I can hear you thinking,’ Rosa called over to him. It had been something she’d say to him in bed often, right before they went to sleep. Except then, she’d turn over and force him to talk about it. And he would, because he’d wanted to share it with her.
Now, he didn’t.
‘You’re not going to say anything, are you?’ she said a bit softer, though he still heard her. ‘I’m sorry, Aaron. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just... You know my parents didn’t have the most conventional relationship. They didn’t share things with one another.’
‘We weren’t like that,’ he heard himself say.
‘I know we weren’t. But that’s because—’ he heard rustling, and assumed that she was now sitting up ‘—we weren’t like them.’
‘Now we are?’
‘Now...things have changed.’
‘Because you found a lump in your breast.’
‘Yes.’ Silence followed her words, but he waited. ‘You already went through all that with your mother. I didn’t want you to have to go through that with me too.’
He frowned, and then sat up. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and he could see the silhouette of her on the bed. She was sitting up, like he’d thought, and had drawn her legs to her chest, her arms around them, her head resting on her knees. He’d found her like that before. Once, when her mother had just died. And again on each anniversary of her mother’s death.
He still couldn’t resist it. Even though, as he walked to her, as he sat down next to her on the bed, he told himself he needed to.
‘I can’t imagine how scared you must have been,’ he said softly. ‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘But—’
‘I know you didn’t want me to worry. And now I know that you were also thinking about what happened with my mother. But you shouldn’t have. You should have thought of us first. Of yourself too.’ He paused, struggling to figure out how to tell her what he’d thought she already knew. ‘We’re...stronger together. No matter what we face, we’re stronger facing it together.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I do. Why is that so hard for you to believe?’
‘Because I was you, Aaron. And I didn’t feel the way you claim to feel now.’
* * *
‘What do you mean?’ Aaron asked her in that quiet, steady way he had. And since his quiet, steady presence had already calmed her, she answered him.
‘I didn’t ask to be my mother’s emotional support when she got sick.’ She stopped and wondered if he’d know what she meant by that. That she was talking about her mother’s mental illness and her cancer.
But her mother’s mental illness wasn’t a subject she’d ever wanted to talk about—it had been too difficult—though she had mentioned it to him once. But could she expect him to remember something she’d only mentioned once?
She shook the doubt away. ‘But I had no choice. My father...was useless with that kind of thing—’ with everything that she’d gone through ‘—and my brothers used excuse after excuse to keep from dealing with my mother’s illness. Or emotions. Or anything beyond their own lives.’ She rolled her eyes at that, much like she had to their faces. ‘I was forced into being her carer, and I didn’t want to do that to you.’
‘I took my vows seriously.’
‘But you don’t know how... You don’t know until you know.’
His hand engulfed hers. ‘I do know,’ he told her. ‘I made those vows intentionally. I’d be there for you in sickness and in health.’
‘My parents made those vows too,’ she responded quietly. ‘And look where that got them.’
‘They weren’t us.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
He didn’t reply. Only drew her into his arms and slid down so that they were lying together on the bed.
She didn’t want this. She didn’t want to be reminded of how good it felt to share her worries with him. How good it felt to lie there in his strong arms and let him take that burden from her.
But she stayed there and, for the first time in months, felt herself relax.