The Conversation
      Chapter 19

 

“I didn’t care enough to want it then.”

She backs up slightly, trying to gauge his feelings. For as little as she knew about her husband in their earliest months together, she always knew that he banished himself to the life that he thought he deserved, the only life he thought he could have. He never seemed to want anything more for himself, until he sacrificed everything he knew to protect her, to be with her. But she never knew why he cared so little about himself and his future… he cared so little that he was willing to sacrifice his own life for his sister and for her.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t have anything else to care about… everything else was gone.”

“But I was there… I was willing to be with you.”

“Yeah, but only if I left my family… and the position I was expected to… born to fill.”

As he begins to drift back to the confrontation they had in the lighthouse, he becomes increasingly agitated and finds himself inching off the bed. He rolls off and begins toward the bathroom.

“Hold on… Danny?"

He stops and turns to look at her, hoping that the look in his eyes would communicate his need for solitude. She sits up on the edge of the bed and sees that very look, but ignores it.

"Wait a minute, please don't leave. I need to know… did you think that I wanted you to leave your mother for me?”

He slouches his shoulders and folds his arms on his chest. He wants nothing more than to go into the bathroom and splash some cold water on his face, but he sees the pleading look in her eyes and cannot deny her. Taking a deep breath, he takes a few small steps closer to her before answering.

“Well, yeah. What else would I think?”

“And that’s why you said no?”

“I couldn’t change for you.”

She rises from the bed and stands directly in front of him, her belly touching his, her arms entangled in the waistband of his casual slacks. She pokes her head underneath his to ensure his full attention.

“Danny, I didn’t want it for me… I wanted you to change for yourself… because you deserved so much more than what you had… and because I knew that life was going to kill you. If it hadn't been by a bullet or a car bomb, then it would've happened slowly, by draining the life out of you every single day. It killed me to see what that house, that business and that life did to you. I knew you didn’t belong there, any more than Pilar or I did.”

He turns his head away from her. This is an issue they could never agree on, and she's bringing it up again. His own low self-worth is something that gnaws at him every day, despite her continuous attempts to make him understand how good he is and how much she loves him. He will always believe that she deserves better than he can give her. It's an inherent truth that he will believe until his dying day.

“That’s not true.”

She pulls his face back to her and untangles his arms. Gently, she cradles his chin in her hands as she ensures his direct eye contact.

“Yes it is," she whispers.

He takes her hand from his chin and kisses her palm a half-dozen times before placing it in his own and leading her back to the bed. He sits her down and releases her hand, walking toward the window. He stares out at their unfinished house, remembering the day-picnics and the midnight swims in the lake that they would share. All of their times at Laurel Falls were spent dreaming of the future, never drudging up the past. This is where they were married, where they first made love, where their children would grow up, this was not a place to live in the past. But not today. Today he was forced to remember all of the feelings, all of the regrets… today he had to tell her exactly who he was before he met her.

“See, that's where you're wrong… Michelle, I have a certain… knack… for that life. It's what I was brought up to believe in… I began learning about our family business before I could even comprehend the responsibility of being a part of it. I can't remember a time when I didn't know what to do if I was crossed, when I didn't know how to squeeze an opponent dry before crushing him. This was all taught to me before I can even remember. It's what I know better than anything else.”

"You know me."

Her meek voice sounds miles away. Afraid of the distance between them, he turns again to her, still with memories flooding his mind. Yes, he knows her, better than anyone ever could know another living soul. She was right. But was it enough? Is knowing her and wanting this life with her enough to erase qualities that were born unto him?

"I do… but it's not the same."

"I understand. I do. You were scared… you still are. You keep questioning things about yourself, and for some reason, you never believe me when I tell you that you're worth more than all of those other families put together. You know, having a knack doesn’t define who you are.”

“I know. I know that. Look, we're not talking about my childhood traumas here."

"But we can if…"

He backs up slightly from her and walks to the big chair that she was occupying earlier. They switch positions as she takes her place on the ottoman directly in front of him.

"No. The point remains… that night at the lighthouse… I couldn’t let you win.”

“Win? I wasn't trying…”

“You know what I mean. You were trying to seduce me… again… how was I supposed to believe you that time?”

He was right. She thought back to the times that she used her feminine wiles to get his attention off of something. She was never proud of those moments, but she knew that this was nothing like their past. She knew that on this night, she was finally honest with herself and with him. Sometimes, she's found herself thinking back to this night, wondering what else she could've said to make him stay. The pain in his eyes was almost more than she could stand. To know that their love could create such pain frightened her more than living without him. For the first time since they'd known each other, she opened her heart completely to him; there was no going back after this night.

He leans back in the chair and crosses his legs, allowing her access to his calf. She looks down and begins to massage the crease out of his pant leg, concentrating meticulously on it as she answers in a low tone.

“Because I was telling you the truth. I wasn’t holding anything back.”

“I didn’t know that. For all I knew it was just another attempt to get me to do… whatever the hell it was you wanted me to do.”

Her head slowly lifts up at his admission. He thought she was manipulating him yet again. Although she knew he had every right to feel this way, her heart couldn't help but sink at the thought that he expected so little from her, that he could believe her insincerity so easily. But how easy was it? The look in his eyes told her that she was tearing his heart apart. The feel of his lips told her that he wanted to stay and bask in their newfound love that night. The might with which he pulled away told her that his mind and his heart were conflicted, fighting to the death.

“You really thought that?”

“Yeah, I did. I mean, I guess I did. I don't know."

"Good answer."

"I'm not trying to be glib, Michelle. You confused the hell out of me. I didn't know what you wanted from me."

"Just you. I told you, I only wanted you…"

"With conditions. You only wanted me if I left my family."

His mind races back to the feeling of her lips on his that night. As though someone had answered all of his prayers, he heard words fall from her lips that he had only dreamed of. But there she was, giving herself to him in what seemed like a moment too good to be true. And it was. Then he heard it… "You can leave your family…". It took every piece of strength he could muster to push her away, the woman of his dreams, the woman who had instilled a sense of peace in him that he never thought he deserved. And she was proving it that night. He could never be what she wanted.

"Why was that such a bad thing to want?"

"It wasn't. It really wasn't… not for you. But I had to change who I was in order to be with you, and you weren't enough…"

"Yeah, I got that… when you walked out."

"No, I just mean… what were we supposed to do? Ride off into the sunset? It wasn't that easy; it would never have been easy back then. Plus, I had to help Pilar, and I had to figure out what I was gonna do, and I couldn't do that with you."

She gently places her hands under her chin as she tries to soak this in. Her love wasn't enough then. When did it change? And why did he have to be so drastic in his reaction to her declaration of love?

"So instead, you had annulment papers drawn up. Nice, tidy ending to a nice, tidy marriage."

"Hold on a second, don't make it sound like it was a party for me to get those papers… like I enjoyed it."

"I know… I’m sorry…"

"Because it felt like hell… asking you to sign them."

"Yeah well it didn't feel so good to get them, either."

He remembers trying to talk her into signing the papers and the look of steely determination in her eyes. If he didn't know better, he'd say he had fallen more deeply in love with her in those very moments. Although his mind kept reminding him that this was what she had wanted all those months, his heart kept leaping back to the night before… the kiss… the desperation in her grasp… the tears in her eyes, over him. His heart knew this wasn't what either of them wanted, but back then, he was trying to believe that his heart didn't exist.

"You were so stubborn."

She remembers that day at Millennium so well – the day her hopes were so high before being ripped from her very soul.

"I thought that you had changed your mind and I was so happy. I remember my heart… it was racing so fast… for the briefest second, at least. But then we sat down and you handed me the papers and everything around me just stopped. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn't believe that you wanted to end our marriage. But I couldn't let you go. I knew that. For the first time, I knew I wanted you in my life and I wasn't gonna let that feeling go. No way."

"You were so aggravating, do you know that? You pushed me away for so long, and then all of a sudden you're ripping up the papers, making a scene, doing all this stuff just to be with me. I felt like I was in some kind of bad movie and you weren't you and… You know, all I wanted was the best for you. And being with me wasn't the best for you."

"Because… you were committing yourself to the family?"

He uncrosses his legs and leans toward her, cupping the backs of her calves and rubbing her legs repeatedly. He stops and places his hands on her knees, looking up into her adoring and understanding eyes of love.

"I loved you too much to let you live that way. You were trapped once because your life depended on it and because we didn't have a choice. But this time we did, we had a choice, I had a choice, and I wasn't going to bring you back and put your life at risk, just because I loved you. I wasn't going to make you stop living your life just to be with me."

"So our little trip to the park…"