“What about that day after we visited Colleen’s parents and I was being a bastard, did you think to yourself, Geez, what have I got myself into here?”
“I … don’t really remember.” She remembered how she’d relived the weekend in the mountains with Jon the whole way home.
“Of course you’ve had moments of doubt. You probably felt like strangling me when I left those boxes in the hallway, but the thing is, you don’t say every single thought that crosses your mind out loud.”
“Yes,” said Ellen. His eyes held hers. She looked away. “I mean no.”
A feeling of misery swept over her. All day she’d been waiting for him to deny what he’d said, to somehow explain it away, and even though she wouldn’t have believed him, she’d been perfectly prepared to begin the process of deluding herself. Now she just had to grin and bear it: Her husband would always be looking at her and wishing she was his first wife.
“I understand,” she began bravely.
“You do not,” said Patrick.
“Oh, OK.”
“You think love is black and white. All women think that. And they’re wrong. Women are really intelligent except for when they’re being really stupid.”
She punched him, quite hard, on the arm.
“Ow. Look, I’m still not saying this right.” He chewed on the inside of his mouth with an expression that was so frustrated it was almost anguished.
“It’s all right.” She rubbed his arm where she’d punched him. “I do understand.”
“Have I been talking too much about Colleen lately?” said Patrick abruptly.
Ellen shrugged and smiled.
“I’m sorry.” He picked up her hand. “She’s been on my mind, ever since we got engaged and you told me about the baby. It’s because I’ve felt so happy. Even with Saskia still hanging about. I haven’t felt this happy since Colleen was pregnant with Jack. And that’s made me think about her, remembering things.”
He ran his thumb over her knuckles.
“Colleen told me I’d fall in love again, and have more babies, and I said I wouldn’t. I said I’d never be happy again. But I am. Sometimes I think, actually, this is better than it ever was with Colleen. It’s deeper, it’s more grown-up. It’s just … better. Then I thank God and the Internet that I met you! And then I feel bad for Colleen, because it’s like I’m thinking, Thank God she died.”
“Right.” She wasn’t sure if she believed him, or if he just wanted to make her feel better.
“I’m not sure if you believe me, but it’s the truth. Don’t you ever have thoughts that totally contradict each other? Isn’t it possible to feel one thing one day and the opposite the next?”
“I guess. Well, yes.” She really wasn’t enjoying this role. It was mildly humiliating. She was the one who was meant to ask the wise questions, to gently lead the less emotionally intelligent to new insights.
“And the stupid thing is, when I have those thoughts, I feel like I should make up for it to Colleen by remembering all the good times I had with her. As penance. So the better it is with you, the more I think about her. Does that make sense? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a Catholic thing.”
“No, that makes sense.”
“Anyway, obviously, I do not spend my days comparing you and Colleen, like you’re in some sort of permanent ninja-fighting contest. To be honest, most of the time my thoughts are pretty superficial: like, hmm, I feel like lamb chops, or how can I beat Jack to level 4 on Tomb Raiders. That sort of thing.”
Ellen picked up two marshmallows and squished them together between her fingertips.
“When Colleen died everyone started talking about her as if she were a saint. People put on these mournful faces as if our marriage had been amazing, as if we never had a fight. And I think I bought into that. I was younger. Everything was simpler. So I guess that’s why I said what I said last night. Of course I’ll never love another woman the way I loved Colleen, because I’ll never be eighteen and falling in love for the first time again, but that doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you. And exactly the same thing applies in reverse. I never loved Colleen the way I love you.”
Ellen suddenly, unexpectedly yawned, and Patrick laughed. “Aren’t I meant to be the one yawning while you talk on about your feelings? Anyway, the bottom line is that I love you with all my heart. Not in a halfhearted, second-best way. I love you. And all I can do is spend the rest of my life proving that to you. Do you get that, my crazy hypnotist?”
He put his hand to the back of her head and kissed her, hard, as if they were saying good-bye at a railway station and he was going off to war.
A deeply peaceful feeling surged through her veins. It wasn’t so much what he’d said, but the two lines of fierce concentration between his eyes the whole time he was speaking made it seem as if it really, really mattered that she understood. Or maybe it was just because she was so very, very sleepy, and Luisa was pregnant, and the newspaper article wasn’t running.
“I think I get it,” she said when they came up for air.
“Thank God, because I don’t think I’ve ever talked about ‘feelings’ so much in my entire life as I have over the last two hours.” He handed her a marshmallow. “See? The last marshmallow. That’s love. Now let’s go to bed.”
Chapter 26
Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, believed that we should strive to create “Cities of Joy.” Hisobjective was to create urban infrastructure with one objective:happiness. As town planners, can we plan for happiness?Are we planning for happiness?
—Quote from a speaker at a seminar attended by Saskia
Brown following the death of her mother. “Plan for
happiness,” she wrote in her notebook.
It was a warm Saturday afternoon, two weeks after the accident, or the event, or whatever you want to call it. I’d been moved to a new room adjoining a courtyard where they sometimes wheeled me out for some fresh air. I could smell jasmine and the possibility of summer.
The surgery on my ankle had gone well, according to the doctors, and my pelvis fracture was healing as expected. No more morphine clicker. Just ordinary pain relief doled out in little plastic cups.
Lance’s wife, Kate, sat on the visitor’s chair next to me. We were both knitting. She’d been twice before to give me lessons, refusing to accept any money for the wool or the new needles she’d bought especially for me. My first project was to be a scarlet beanie with a big white pom-pom on top. It was for me. The thought had crossed my mind to knit something for Jack, or even for Patrick’s mother, Maureen, because she’d once knitted me a beret. An apology gift, I thought. Something to say good-bye. It would be a nice gesture. But as soon as I thought of it I saw an image in my head of a huge oak door, like something you’d see on a medieval castle. The door slammed shut in my face.