Elliott would be back soon. He had a meeting with a Denver detective and the FBI agent in charge of the Connelly case, Gwen Menard, later that morning. Apparently the report had come back on the boxed sports drink bottle.
“Wait! You said you had something to tell me.”
She’d called in a moment of weakness. Of doubt. Afraid she’d let loneliness, her mother getting married, Gabi’s marriage, all the change convince her that she was a marrying type of person. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was her father?
Not in the cheating sense, but in the not-being-able-to-be-a-good-spouse sense.
She loved Elliott to distraction. But when he’d said he had the meeting with Gwen Menard, she’d had a doubt. For a second there.
Okay, for more than a second. She was still, that very minute, doubting.
“It’s okay, Dad. We can talk about it another time...”
“Tell, me, baby. Whatever it is. I’ve been a good dad to you. The issues with your mother aside. You’ve always been able to come to me...”
“I... I don’t really know how to tell you this...”
And didn’t want to talk about the rest of it. Not anymore. She’d deal with her doubts. Beat them down until they didn’t dare surface again.
“Just say it right out. Whatever it is. You’re scaring me. Are you sick? What’s wrong?”
“I... I’m married, Daddy.”
Silence hung on the line. Total silence. For a second she thought they’d been disconnected.
But then she heard him take a deep breath.
“I knew I should have waited to tell you.” First her mother. Now her.
“No! You should have told me sooner,” he said. And Marie felt like an idiot.
“Oh, Daddy. It’s not what you’re thinking. I didn’t deliberately cut you out. It wasn’t planned! It was crazy, really. I’d been falling for this guy for a while, but wouldn’t let myself admit it. Remember before when I called you late that night and you asked me if I was in love? Well, I guess I was and just wouldn’t let myself see it. And then there we were in Vegas and it was the middle of the night and...it just happened.”
“Does he consider himself a lucky man?”
Like Bruce did. Did he love her that much? She got the question.
“There’s no doubt that he loves me as much as I love him,” she said. And wished that the world were perfect enough for that much love to be enough. To guarantee happiness regardless of life’s challenges. And people’s issues.
“You really love him?”
“Oh, yes. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.”
Another pause. “So, what are the doubts in your mind?”
“Love wasn’t enough for you.”
“That’s me. That’s not him.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.”
“You think you’ll be a cheater?” He couldn’t have sounded more astonished. She had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“No! I really and honestly don’t think that,” Marie said. “I’m not even worried about it. I’m worried about my ability to trust. What if I screw up and get all paranoid on him?” What if I’m like you, Daddy, and love isn’t enough to keep me healthy and happy in a relationship? What if it isn’t enough to make me a good wife?
She and Elliott should have talked about it before they’d married. About how her inability to trust, her paranoia, could affect their relationship. And now that it was too late, she wasn’t sure how to bring it up to him.
They probably should have talked about plans for the future, too. Like where they’d been going to live. If either of them wanted a house in the suburbs someday.