A Marriage Worth Fighting For

He hadn’t showered or changed after his day’s work. He was still wearing the dark suit pants and one of the crisp white business shirts he favored whenever he wasn’t wearing scrubs. There was a bright moon in the sky and it picked out the white of the shirt and made it glow against the darker matte of his skin.

He’d taken off his tie and opened the shirt at the top for comfort, and his hair was windblown from driving with the car window cracked open. He liked to drive that way in all weather except the dead of winter, said it was bracing. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow and the shirttail had come untucked at one side, so for once—unusually—there was something rakish about him.

His breathing was heavier than usual and ragged at the edges. His high, square brow was pleated in a tight frown, and there was an odd, numb look to his mouth, even in the low light spilling onto his face from inside the house.

He looked a mess.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then nothing came out and Alicia didn’t have the words for this situation, either, so they just stared at each other, helpless and hostile and so painfully far apart.

In the end, they both spoke in the same moment.

“I’m not inviting you in.”

“You can’t do this, Alicia.”

They went silent again. Despite what she’d just said, she almost moved aside to let him across the threshold. The patterns of seven years were hard to kick. She expected him to force the issue, simply barge past her with or without her consent, but he didn’t.

He actually stepped back, spread his hands a little and conceded her victory. “All right, if you don’t want me in the house, then that’s your right and your choice.”

“Thank you. Yes.”

“But I hate that you’re doing this. That you left a note.”

“You wanted us to talk about it in front of Abby and Tyler?”

“You’ve taken them from their home.”

“I— What was the alternative?”

“Kick me out,” he said, harsh and bitter. “That’s what Anna did to James.”

It shocked her that he could make this reference. Anna and James had been part of their wider circle of friends until they’d divorced, after one of the most poisonous marriages Alicia had ever seen. They were still fighting mercilessly over custody of their five-year-old daughter, who was caught in the cross fire and would bear the scars.

Before Alicia could find words to protest any comparison with such a couple, MJ asked her, “Does Andy know why you’re here?”

“No, not yet. He’ll have to, of course, and Claudia, and everyone else.”

“If you go through with the whole stupid—” he began, but he must have seen something in her face. Whatever this was on her part, it wasn’t stupid. He didn’t finish. He just stood there, a look of loss and uncertainty carved painfully deep into his even, good-looking features. When had she ever seen MJ look like that?

“I’d better go to a motel,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not sleeping on my brother’s front lawn. If you want me to make an appointment to talk to you in the morning, Alicia, I’ll do that. Just tell me where and what time. But I’m not going back to the city until we have talked, and I think you owe me that, at least. When I saw your note—” He swallowed hard, lifted his clenched hand to his throat for a moment and didn’t finish.

She saw goose bumps on his forearms. Vermont nights were getting chilly at this time of year and he wasn’t dressed for it. Neither was she, with her feet bare on the hardwood of the front hall.

The idea of an “appointment” in the morning seemed worse than having him here right now. She knew she wouldn’t sleep all night, and the prospect of facing down her husband at some kind of formal meeting across a café table—but who would look after the children?—made her stomach drop.

“No,” she said. “Let’s talk now.”

“Here?” He gestured at the front porch and the yard and almost seemed willing, despite the chill and dark.

This time, she did step back. “Inside, of course.”

He came across the porch and through the door, and his shirtsleeve would have brushed the front of her robe if she hadn’t leaned a crucial inch closer to the hallway wall. “Where’s Maura? I don’t want her—”

“She left.”

“Left?”

“Quit. She didn’t want to be in Vermont. Too rural. I gave her money for a cab and a bus ticket back to the city. You probably crossed paths with her somewhere near Albany.”

She closed the heavy wooden door and followed him toward the front living room, but he turned suddenly while they were still in the hall and pulled her into his arms, with a disturbing mix of authority and hesitation. “Don’t—don’t do this.”

“What?”

His muscles were hard around her, all knotted and demanding. “Any of it! This gesture. We have two children. A partnership.”

“It’s not a gesture.”

“Forgive me if I get the semantics wrong,” he almost yelled.

“You’re right. There’s so much else wrong. Semantics is not even the tip of the iceberg.”

“What else is wrong?”

“Everything, MJ. What’s right? Tell me one thing that’s right about our marriage?” She pushed at his arms. They were so rigid they were almost painful, and she had no desire whatsoever to soften into them when they were like that.

But then she caught the drift of scent from his skin, a mix of soap and nuttiness, and for a moment it made her crumble inside. The scent of safety, she’d thought when it first became familiar to her, seven years ago. A precious, desperately valued scent that said everything was going to be okay now. She didn’t need to be scared anymore. She didn’t need to be alone.

It was such a powerful memory. It almost undermined her resolve. Unconsciously, she relaxed a little and felt his hold on her grow closer, but at the same time softer, a little less like a vise. His hands slipped down the back of her robe, warming her spine, coming to rest in the inward curve of her waist.

He laced his fingers together, leaned back a little and looked at her, eyes raking over her as if taking inventory or examining a precious possession in search of flaws. Hell, he couldn’t possibly think he’d won this already, could he?

She’d left him, left her marriage, and it wasn’t a mere gesture. She meant it. She was serious.

And yet, why shouldn’t he think he’d won? He won so many things, so often. Discussions about where and when to go for their vacation, inevitably choosing status destinations that they could talk about with their friends. The decision about building his medical career in New York City, following his father’s and grandfather’s tradition. She hadn’t even dared to suggest that somewhere else might be a worthwhile choice. The debate about when they should start trying for a baby, when Alicia would have preferred to wait another year or two—and then of course she had gotten pregnant the first month.

But if Alicia thought she was winning this one, why wasn’t she pushing him away? she wondered. She should be!

“You have a beautiful apartment,” he said, still angry but softer about it. “You have a platinum credit card. I buy you gifts. I take you out. When do I ever say no to any of it? Your personal trainer, your wardrobe, the help we pay top dollar for.”

There.

Right there.

That was the whole problem.