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“Go,” Logan commanded, eyes still on mine.
“Yes,” I said to my counsel. “You can go.”
My lawyer sighed, picked up his bag, and left right behind Logan’s. The
door clicked, leaving me alone with my husband.
We didn’t move.
“You want me?” My question came out as a challenge.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“You think I won’t change? That’s the least I’ll do. I’ll get rid of
everything. Every dollar I earned and the billions I inherit. I’d give it all to
you if that’s what you want. But you want my name? Take it. You’re the
only asset worth a damn.”
“I don’t want you to change. I don’t want to take who you are.”
“Then take my time. Take my career. Take it all and throw it away. I
don’t care. Just take me. With nothing else. After all the changing is done—
all the work, all the decisions—take the part of me that’s always the same.
The part that loves you.”
Unable to stand another second of his intensity, I looked down. My
fingers were splayed on the table, pressed so hard the knuckles were white.
“This is real,” I said.
“You bet your ass it’s real.” He wasn’t across the table. In the seconds
since I’d broken our gaze, he’d come around to my side. “I know you didn’t
like being my wife. So don’t be. Be my One Big Thing.”
My spine straightened, hands off the table, head up in surprise at the
contradiction. “You want me and a divorce?”
“No.” He put his hands inches from my biceps, pausing before he
touched them as if waiting for a signal that it was all right. I took half a step
closer to him, and he let himself touch me. “I don’t want a wife.” His
thumbs drifted upward, caressing my jaw where the skin was sensitive. “I
want to be married… to you.”
I didn’t know how badly I’d needed to hear those words until he said
them.
Not a husband and a wife—two motionless objects on top of a wedding
cake—but two people tied to one another, engaged in the living, growing
act of being married.
Like my parents. Like Ted and Doreen. Like every other marriage that
seemed perfect from the outside because the inside constantly evolved.