“Talk?” I asked her, even though I wasn’t sure if I could handle hearing all he’d done to her.
She shook her head. “Just, can you hold me?”
That I could do.
She rolled over and turned out the light.
Wrapping my arm around her, I pulled her in close. Part of me was excited to sleep with her in my arms, the other part of me felt guilty, because I knew how wounded she was right now. Maybe the sex earlier was only for her to feel something other than pain, and if I could take a little of that from her, so be it. But to me, it had been so much more.
I wasn’t sure what was going to happen between us, but whatever she needed, I’d be there for her.
For the next week, we assumed that no news was good news. According to my sister, Brock had handled the ring situation for her, and everything was in motion. It was just a waiting game now to see if the feds would pick up on the new trail.
Gia and I, we fell into a pattern. We’d cook in the kitchen together, share our meals, make love when we felt like it, take Archie on walks together. Even packed up the snowmobile and drove her out to the lake for ice fishing with me one day. I was shocked as hell that she didn’t squirm when bating the hooks. I was even more surprised that she didn’t mind gutting the trout. She just shrugged and her eyes turned misty as she told me how she and her dad would go fishing when she was little.
Some days, she’d write on her laptop while I tended to my properties. I actually had a few renters come through now that the snow was melting and spring would be blooming soon, so my job was about to pick up drastically.
Gia didn’t seem to mind when I worked. She just did her own thing when I got busy. It was like we were living together, but not really, because every night we’d repeat the same routine. Go to our separate rooms, then eventually, she’d come creeping in and ask for permission to sleep in my bed. I didn’t want to pressure her for too much too fast, but I wanted to make things easier on her, let her know where I was on my end.
I think you should move a few items into my bedroom. I scrawled along the pad between us one afternoon at lunch. I was very careful to say a few and not all. Baby steps. I’d told her a lot that week that she was the one that would dictate the pace. If she needed me to pull back, I’d pull back. Just a few. A change of clothes. Toothbrush. Just so you’re not going back and forth. I added.
She shook her head, putting down her fork. “I don’t know, Tanner, it feels…” she sighed “…wrong.” Every day I’d given her lessons in ASL. And I was right, she was wicked smart and had a knack for language. She was picking it up quickly. Okay, yes, she was years away from being fluent, but the little she’d learned had been helping volumes with conversation.
I jutted my head back. I’d fucked her bent over the sofa yesterday from behind, yet her moving a few items of clothing into my bedroom felt wrong? She was sleeping there every night anyway. I’d just assumed she was waiting for my invite in.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t…I don’t…” she put her hands down, frustrated, and gave up, then picked up the pen. I know what I feel, and what I want, but I also know what we’re doing is not rational. I just need to know this makes sense. That it’s real. After I read, I looked at her as she motioned between the two of us.
Sure, the thing we had going was anything but rational, but I’d already done rational. I dated Alex for three years, was married to her for five. Maybe it was time to do something a little crazy. It was just so natural with Gia. My parents moved in together after the third date. They were married three months later. Forty years later they were still going strong. Sometimes the best things in life made no damn sense. No, I wasn’t going to propose, but I suspected both of us knew where it was headed, someday. Now that she was here, I couldn’t imagine life without her. When you know, you know, right?
Well, at least I knew.
I don’t want to be a replacement she added, dotting the pen aggressively several times to the paper.
I dropped my fork to my plate, practically choking on my food. Woah. I’d never even thought of it like that, because nothing, not a damn thing could ever replace what I’d lost.
“Sorry,” she signed. “I didn’t mean it like that…” She rubbed her brow.
I shook my head, letting her know it was okay. No, that was understandable.
And I knew it was time for me to nut up and get real with her. Swallowing, I wiped my face with the napkin and dropped it to the table. “New…different…emotions. Very real.” I stopped shy of saying love and settled on just clutching my heart instead, looking Gia dead in the eye. Then, I squeezed her hand for reassurance. That’s what was refreshing. It was completely different from what I’d had before, which was what made it so exciting.
Yes, I’d loved my wife, and I grieved her loss every day. I’d never stop loving Alex or missing her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t love Gia just as much, along with the child she was carrying. My heart was big enough to hold them all.
“Also, she never lived here.” Yes, I’d built my home for Alex, but having never lived in it with her, I’d built very few memories of her there. “She didn’t want to.”
Gia’s chin jutted back, and she shook her head. “I don’t understand?” Yeah, she had that sign down pat after a week. There was a lot I’d say that she didn’t understand. But this wasn’t about words. It was why. Why my wife had never lived in this home I’d made for us.
I sucked in a deep breath. “A lot of talking, can you deal?” I signed and spoke to her. More than I was ready for. Not just because words were so difficult, but because I was putting myself out there, raw and vulnerable, fully prepared for G to judge me like everyone else in my goddamn town. “Can you understand me?” I knew I did okay with the shorter phrases, but I wasn’t sure she could track the whole conversation.
Gia nodded. “Be brave,” she signed nodding to me as if to say you got this, Tanner.
I gave her back a half-hearted grin and patted her thigh. She was so cute, always telling me how sweet and perfect I was. And I was about to destroy all those notions. This was it. The make or break moment.
“The day my wife went missing, we had an argument. A big one,” I began, signing my words along with my voice. “We were still building this place. Living in the cabin you broke into. But we were so close to being done.” I motioned to the home. “And that was the moment she decided to tell me she didn’t want to live here. She wanted us to move back to New York.”
Her eyes widened, why written all over her face. I didn’t feel like getting into the why’s of it all though. There were a hundred different reasons why Alex had changed her mind. I’d been neglectful. She missed the city. Her friends. Her parents. She was lonely. Etcetera. She’d just picked a really shitty time to finally mention it. Contractors were making the final touches. Movers bringing in furniture. My wife’s timing could not have been worse.
“I was furious.” I could feel every muscle in my face contract with my rage. “But we could have worked through it, until Alex dropped the second bomb on me.”
Gia’s brow went up. I could see she was still tracking, that my words weren’t too hard to understand.