The World Outside, 31
Homeward
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It was hard to sleep that night. Hope and fear tumbled together, wrestling and twisting until just before dawn. Joanna finally drifted off and woke up around ten the next morning, having finally succumbed to a fitful sleep as the sun was rising. She was exhausted, but having a plan energized her. She pulled on the comfy drawstring shorts and faded t-shirt she’d brought and went into the kitchen. Max, again wearing sweatpants and nothing else, was scrambling eggs at the stove when she came out.
“Morning,” he said, concentrating on the skillet in front of him.
“Morning.” She decided to get it over with. “So…thanks, Max, for letting me crash. I’m going to get out of your hair, though—I’m leaving for home in a little bit.”
Max slowed for a moment in his scrambling, still not looking at her, and then he picked it back up and continued.
“Really. I guess that’s good news. You two get all your issues sorted, then?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she lied. “Anyway. Thanks again.”
“Eggs?”
Joanna got two plates from the cupboard and poured them each a cup of coffee while Max scooped a serving onto each plate.
“You think Erik’s upset?” he asked casually, digging into his food.
“I don’t know.” Joanna wanted to keep the conversation as impersonal as possible; Max seemed to want something different.
“If it were me, I’d be,” he shrugged.
Joanna put a sliver of egg in her mouth, slowly. “Well…even if he is, I miss him.”
“You never told me what happened,” he mentioned, his voice still casual, but there was a self consciousness in his tone. Having finished his eggs, he put the pan and his plate in the sink and began filling it with soapy water, not looking at her.
“I don’t know that I’m going to.”
“That’s cool. Not my place, obviously.” He turned the water off and finally looked at her. “Still, you’re already here. What’s the harm in staying a little longer and giving Erik a chance to cool down?”
If Joanna were being honest with herself, she’d have to acknowledge the part of her that was wondering the same thing. Giving Erik a chance to cool down was exactly what she wanted to do. But, remembering the tone from his final message last night, she knew that a few more days wouldn’t help at all. Erik was angry; Joanna had really and truly messed up. She needed to deal with it now or not at all.
“Well, I just…want to get home. So—thanks. And thanks for breakfast.” She finished her eggs in one bite and reached past him to slide the plate into the sink. As she did so, Max put a soapy wet hand on each side of her waist, holding her loosely against the counter.
“I think you owe it to yourself to stay,” he said to her quietly, looking straight at her.
Joanna laughed nervously and looked past him, avoiding his gaze. “Thanks, but I’m going to go and risk it anyway.”
Max tightened his hold, pushing her slowly and gently backward until she felt the edge of the counter digging into her back. He took a half step closer so that there was only a sliver of distance between them. Joanna’s back stiffened, and she darted her eyes from side to side, trying to figure out the best move. The last thing she wanted to deal with this morning was an amorous narcissist.
“Jo—” he began in a whisper, but the buzzer rang before he could continue. “Damn it,” he muttered, wiping his hands quickly on the dish towel and stalking to the door. Joanna took the opportunity and hurried to her room to pack her bag. Her heart was pounding—what on earth had just happened? What had been about to happen?
“Yeah?” she heard him bark into the intercom. She didn’t hear what the other person said, but, a moment later, she heard Max sigh sharply and then say, “Jess, this isn’t a good time.” There was another pause and then, “Fine—fine, okay. Come on up.”
Joanna had her bag packed and zipped and was carrying it back into the living room when Jess knocked on the door. Max gestured at her to wait and opened the door. Joanna barely saw what happened in the next moment, but Max suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach and groaning—Erik was standing in the doorway, flexing and shaking out the fingers of his right hand. Jess was nowhere in sight.
“Erik!” Joanna exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” She had never seen him punch anyone before. She had never seen a look on anyone’s face like she saw on his, either.
Max was trying to catch his breath and push himself back up to standing when he held a hand out to Erik and wheezed, “Look, nothing happened, okay? I swear.”
“Shut your mouth,” Erik growled. He took a half step toward Max, and Max shrank back and slumped onto the floor, coughing.
Joanna watched him for a moment and then turned back to Erik, who was now crossing the room to her. When he reached her, he let out a sharp breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Get your stuff,” he barked.
Without a word, she picked up her bag and carried it by the handle, following Erik out the door. She put Max’s extra key on the counter and glanced at him as she left. His eyes followed her as he worked to take a deep breath. Erik paid him no attention at all.
Joanna was afraid to make any noise, lest she set Erik off. She closed the door behind them and practically tiptoed down the hallway next to him. Right before they reached the stairs, Erik shook his head and grabbed the bag roughly out of her hand. He swung it over his shoulder as he jogged down the steps.
All this, and he was willing to carry her things. Joanna’s chest clenched.
+++
The tension in the car mounted throughout the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Joanna wondered if Erik might actually lose control—he’d never laid a hand on her in anger in her life, not even when they were kids. But she’d never made him this angry before, either.
Erik hated driving in the city, even under the best of circumstances, so she waited until they were well outside of it before she took a deep breath and said quietly, “Erik…I didn’t—I didn’t sleep with him.”
Erik’s only response was to exhale sharply through his nose and shoot her a cutting glance.
“I just…wanted you to know that,” she added quietly, looking down at her hands.
He turned his head to give her an incredulous look and then shook it in disgust.
“What?”
Another exhale and then he spoke, slowly, with excruciating control. “Why did you come down here the day you did? Because it was your due date. Don’t look so surprised, Joanna,” he warned in response to the look she gave him. “I loved that baby, too.” His voice broke a little, and he took a moment to compose himself before continuing. “But instead of coming to me, your husband, you ran down here to some other guy for comfort. You took my job and gave it to someone else. And Max, of all fucking people!”
“But I didn’t!” she protested. She couldn’t tell how believable she sounded; the look on his face told her not very. “I didn’t even tell Max why I was there! I didn’t even plan to be there—I just ran into him!”
“I don’t care!” he roared, shocking her into silence. “You went to him when you couldn’t stand to be around me.” He paused, gripping the steering wheel ever more tightly. Then, more quietly, he said, “You haven’t let me be a…a real husband to you in months, Joanna, and…and you haven’t been a wife to me.”
She sat back, unable to think of anything to say.
She finally mumbled, “I just—I just thought you’d be better off if I got my act together and then came back.”
Erik looked over at her again. “I don’t want you to get your act together to be with me, baby. Just—if you’re going to fall apart, fall apart with me. That’s all I ask.”
Joanna didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t. They drove in silence for another 30 miles or so, and then she whispered, “I miss the baby, Erik.”
“Me too.”
+++
It was more than an hour before Erik pulled off the interstate and found a Wendy’s in a strip mall for an early, quiet dinner. He led her to a table in the back with a hand placed lightly on the small of her back. She took what comfort she could from that small, warm gesture.
After dinner, they returned to the car without speaking, but before turning the key, Erik yawned and looked over at her. “I am completely exhausted. Let’s just find a motel and finish the drive tomorrow, okay?” Without waiting for her to respond, he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.
A boulder fell straight down to the bottom of Joanna’s stomach. A hotel, she thought. One bed.
+++
Joanna sat on the bed in their room while Erik went to the bathroom and washed his face. He’d pulled over at the first place they’d seen—a seedy, knockoff chain motel just down the road from Wendy’s. In better times, they would have joked about the sketchy atmosphere and the broken neon sign that read “MO L.” But not now—now, they checked in silently, drove to their room silently, and opened the door silently.
The bedspread was scratchy, and the sheets felt coated in detergent residue. She flipped on the TV, surfing the channels until she found a rerun of Home Improvement, which she knew Erik had liked when they were younger.
The water ran for a minute in the bathroom, and then the toilet flushed, and then Erik came out in his boxers, scratching the back of his head. “I didn’t bring my toothbrush,” he confessed, lying back on the bed with his arms crossed behind his head, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “All yours.”
Eyeing him surreptitiously, Joanna walked to the bathroom with her backpack, shocked to realize that this was the first time since December that she had seen so much of her husband. It wasn’t fair that, with everything that had happened this year, his body didn’t seem to have changed at all. If anything, he looked better now than he had six months ago.
She spent extra time that night, brushing her teeth twice, scrubbing her hands and face with the nappy washcloth, putting on extra deodorant. She’d packed in a rush a few days earlier and didn’t have any of her normal lotions or perfumes or even a hairbrush, nor did she have any clothes that were more appealing than the baggy shorts and t-shirt she had on now, but she did the best she could and looked in the mirror, hopeful. The sight that greeted her brought a lump to her throat and tears to her eyes. There was no denying it—she was no longer the girl he’d fallen in love with, all those years earlier. She didn’t know how to get her back, and she didn’t know how to make him happy like this.
She’d spent too much time in the bathroom already. With nothing left to do but face what was before her, she took a deep breath and opened the door quietly. Maybe he had fallen asleep—but no. He was still half-sitting in bed, covered to his waist. His eyes followed her as she walked across the room and got in bed next to him.
“Good episode,” he remarked, gesturing to the TV, where Home Improvement was still on. Joanna gave a quick laugh and pulled the blankets up to her neck. Erik glanced at her but didn’t say anything else. She lay next to him, frozen, wondering what would happen next.
Nothing did. The episode ended and a new one started, without either of them saying a word to each other.
At the first commercial break, Joanna asked him, “How did you know where I was?”
“Jess called me. She had to call around to find my number, but she was worried about you. She said she didn’t know what Max had in mind and that you…didn’t quite look like you. So she picked me up at the airport this morning and got me into the building.”
“Wait, you flew down?” she said, surprised. She looked at him fully for the first time.
“I had to come get you, didn’t I?”
“But…the money…?”
Again, Erik looked annoyed. “Why are you always so surprised that I want to take care of you? Yes, the money. But who cares?”
Joanna nodded. Until then, she’d forgotten about seeing Jess in the stairwell. She supposed she owed her a thank you.
“Was she right to be worried?” he asked her, without looking over, during the next commercial break.
Max’s soapy hands on her waist flashed in her mind. Probably nothing would have happened. But Erik noticed her hesitation and swung his head toward her, his eyebrows raised. Joanna sighed and crossed her arms underneath the blanket.
“He tried to get me to stay with him this morning,” she told him quietly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“He…when you buzzed, he was holding me against the counter and saying I owed it to myself to see what would happen.”
She dared to peek over at Erik, who was fuming. His nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed, and he flung the covers back, so he could pace the room, furious. “Fucking snake,” he finally hissed. “He hasn’t changed since high school.”
Joanna knew better than to respond.
Erik faced her, his hands on his hips. “Tell me one thing: why did you choose Max, of all people?”
“I told you—I was already in Brooklyn. I just ran into him and needed a place to stay. It isn’t like I was planning to see him!”
“But you chose to stay with him! You chose to tell him you needed a place! Why?”
“I…don’t know,” she stammered. “I just knew that he wouldn’t ask me any questions. He wouldn’t want me to talk about the baby.”
“Really,” Erik scoffed. “So nothing would have happened if I hadn’t buzzed when I did this morning?”
“Are you seriously accusing me of having feelings for him?”
“Of course I am!”
“Erik—nothing happened. I swear!”
“Because I got there in time,” he muttered.
“Nothing would have happened! How could you think I’d want Max?”
“What else am I supposed to think, Joanna? You haven’t talked to me for months, and now you run down to your high school boyfriend.”
“Not boyfriend, Erik—crush. I was allowed to have crushes on people back then, okay? You certainly did.”
Erik shook his head again. “I honestly don’t know how you expect me to believe you,” he said quietly. “You have refused to sleep with me, or kiss me, or even touch me, for six months. And then, to find you in that…creep’s…. Both of you looking like you just got out of bed. You don’t know—”
“Why do you care so much about whether I’ll have sex with you?” Joanna yelled, frustrated.
“Because you’re my wife!” he shouted back at her. “Because I waited for you for ten years, and because I love you, and because I’m entitled to you!”
“I just…I just can’t, Erik! You don’t know how much—ever since the baby, I…” She didn’t know what she was trying to say. She started to cry and, for the first time in her memory, Erik looked like he didn’t care. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m ashamed to let you see me like this?” she yelled, her voice breaking. “You’re so…” She gestured at him, unable to come up with a word, “and I’m…”
“You’re what?” he asked, sounding exasperated.
“The only people you’ve ever had sex with,” she began quietly, only now gathering her thoughts, “are Jenna, Alison, and me—before.”
“So what?”
“How am I supposed to let you see me like…this,” she asked him, gesturing to herself in disgust, “when you have those images in your head? Jenna and Alison were perfect, Erik. And I was—maybe I was perfect, too. But I can’t compete now.”
She wasn’t looking at him, but she could sense his confusion as he stared down at her. “Compete…?” he finally asked. “Why would I want you to compete with…any of that? Do you honestly think I spend even a moment, thinking about Jenna or Alison? Ever?”
“So you’re telling me that they never enter your mind? Really?”
He shrugged. “I guess, yeah, a flash of a memory might hit me here or there, but I don’t pay attention. Joanna—listen, I know this doesn’t make me sound great, but they were only placeholders for you. Looking back, maybe I shouldn’t have done anything with them at all, but I was a kid. You didn’t want me; they did. And I was wicked horny. It was really that simple.”
“You never wish you’d ended up with one of them instead? Come on, every guy in school wanted to end up with one of them. Half the girls in school wanted to be with one of them.”
“I didn’t. I wanted you.”
“Okay, so you wanted me. Of course you did—I was young and thin.”
“Will you stop? You’re making me sound like an asshole. I don’t care.”
“How can you not care, Erik?” Joanna yelled, so frustrated now. “I gained twenty pounds in six months! I was showering, like, every two weeks! You watched me lie on a couch and do nothing for six months! I’m disgusting, and I’m supposed to believe that you still want me like you did? Just…let me get back to normal, please, so you don’t have to deal with this.”
Erik ran his hands through his hair and then took a couple of steps forward so that he could squat down in front of the bed and meet her eyes. “I’m not blind. Okay? I know you don’t look exactly like you did when you were seventeen. But—and I’m not just saying this—you are so much more beautiful to me now than you were then.”
“Give me a break,” she muttered.
“No! Fucking hell. Just—” He looked down and sighed in exasperation. “Just shut up. Okay? Listen to me, Joanna.” He folded his hands and looked her straight in the eye, holding her gaze as firmly as if he were holding her face in his hands. “When we were in school, yeah, you were hot. Everyone thought you were. I definitely thought you were. I still think you are, but it’s different. We’ve grown up together. You and I—we created a life together. We lost that life together. I know…everything about you. And now, I look at you and I think,” he shook his head with an awed expression on his face, “I have waited my entire life for this girl, and here she is.”
Joanna watched his face for a long moment; it didn’t change or shift. She didn’t believe his words, but she couldn’t find a hint of insincerity anywhere. She wiped her eyes and rolled over onto her stomach to rest her forehead on her arms.
“Joanna.” Erik’s voice was coming to her through her hair; it was muffled, but she understood his words well enough. “I don’t care if you never get back to normal. All I care about is that you let me be your husband. Don’t ever give that job to someone else again, okay?” She didn’t answer.
Erik sighed, tucked some of her hair behind her ear, traced the line of her cheekbone with the tip of his finger, and then got in bed, lying on his back. He turned off the TV and the lamp and then, right before drifting off, he mumbled, “You think we’re gonna make it?” Joanna couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, and he was asleep before she could ask him.
+++
That night reminded Joanna of how warm and solid Erik was. Joanna dozed a little bit, but mostly, she lay on her back, her hands folded on her stomach, her eyes tracing what she could see of the patterning on the ceiling tiles. She thought about the baby. She thought about what the last six months had done to them—to her. She hadn’t known she had it in her to fall so far, so fast, and she had never faced such a daunting uphill climb back out of the pit, but if she was going to save her marriage, she had to suck it up and get better. She had to get off the couch. She had to start moving again. She had to talk to Erik and let him take care of her, and she had to take care of him, too. She listened to Erik snoring beside her and felt a surge of I want to fix this!
That desire, though, was intermingled with fear. Leaving came more naturally to her than digging in and staying for the long haul. She’d made her choices—to come back home, to marry Erik, to run away when it got hard. No one had forced her to do any of those things. Now, she had to make the next one: to follow through. To do what didn’t come naturally and to stay until they figured this out. She didn’t know if she was capable. And she didn’t know how long Erik was willing to wait.
His face was serious and focused, even in his sleep. He looked like he’d aged more than ten months since their wedding, but he wore it well—he looked steadfast and solid, reliable. If their places were switched, and he were watching her sleeping, would he think the same thing about her? She wasn’t sure.
Sometime in the morning, so early that the dawn was barely a glimmer in the night’s eye, Joanna got up to go to the bathroom. When she came back to the bed, Erik, still half asleep, mumbled something and rolled towards her. He slid his hands under her t-shirt; Joanna froze. He hadn’t had his hands there in months. He’d never felt her stomach the way it was now. She hated the way her puffy skin felt in his hard fingers. He still wasn’t fully awake, but he was getting closer. He kissed her roughly on the side of her neck and, murmuring her name, pulled her shorts down.
As much as she’d feared this exact thing happening, it was over pretty quickly, and Erik—as if he hadn’t even realized what was happening—fell back into a deep sleep, leaving Joanna lying on her back, stunned.
+++
They didn’t talk much on the way home the next day. The heat of their anger was gone, but it had been replaced by awkwardness and forced politeness. As soon as they pulled up in front of the cottage, Joanna—determined to start this new chapter off on the right foot—heated up a can of chowder and a loaf of bread for a light supper.
“Are you working tomorrow?” she asked him about halfway through their meal. Erik nodded, brushing the crumbs from the palms of his hands and swallowing a big piece of buttered bread.
“I’m pretty behind right now,” he said pointedly. Joanna got it a moment later: he’d missed two days of work because of her.
When they were done eating, Erik cleared both places and filled the sink with hot, soapy water. Joanna had gotten used to sitting on the couch and avoiding his gaze while he did all the straightening up, but tonight, she got up from her seat and joined him in the kitchen, dish towel in hand, ready to wipe the dishes dry. Erik glanced over at her, eyebrows raised, and then looked back down into the sink, a small smile on his face.
They stood, hip to hip, working in tandem, for the next ten minutes or so, and, when they were done, their kitchen was nice and clean, ready for the next day.