Based on the 2013 film "Adore" directed by Anne Fontaine and starring Robin Wright, Naomi Watts, Xavier Samuel and James Frecheville.
I own nothing.
'Til Death Do Us Part
"Roz...what's the matter?"
"You can really ask me that?"
Roz had been the first one to leave the beach, unable to savor her joy at having Ian back, and still reeling from horrible reality that she and Lil would never see Alice and Rosie again. Ian had followed her immediately, without another word to his mother or Tom, and found Roz in her bedroom sitting at the edge of her bed, sniffling and trying to stave off a cry.
"Roz..." Ian went to her where she sat on the bed, "talk to me, Roz; we haven't really talked since they left."
"I don't think that I can just...go on...like we did before...as if nothing has happened..."
"And you think that's what I'm doing? You don't think that I care about any of it? You don't think that I'm affected, as well?"
"Are you? Ian? You set this abominable course, away from your Rosie...away from my Alice—we'll never see them again! Because you came in here, acting like a spoiled, bratty little boy! With no thought of anyone but yourself!"
"Yes..." he scoffed at her, "because you're so good at thinking for everyone else, Roz; speaking...for everyone else, hmm?"
"You know why I did what I did—"
"No—I'll never understand that. I loved you—I still love you. We should never have had to end our relationship, Roz, I was free.
"Yes, I acted in the worst way—I was angry, Roz! They betrayed us! Lied to us! And the worst thing is that Tom is going to hurt my mother, even more than she already is over this; you gave it all up, but she didn't—and he doesn't love her, Roz, not the way that I love you...and certainly not the way that she deserves."
"How can you say that? Has he said as much to you?"
"He doesn't have to—I know him, Roz. I know him as well as you know my mother. What do you think we fought about on the beach that day, all those years ago? After he found out about us? After he got with her? Which he only did because he was angry at us!"
"No..." Roz shook her head adamantly at him.
"C'mon, be honest with yourself, damn it! My mother has been hurt all of my natural life; fragile. She doesn't think that I remember, but I do, Roz, what a shit my father was to her; I knew about his girlfriends—I even met one of them, the bastard. She was alone long before he died—don't tell me that you didn't know that..."
"Yes, Ian, of course I knew it..." Roz sadly admitted.
"So, that day on the beach I called him out, and told him that he'd better not hurt her; that I'd kill him if he ever did. And now, here we are, again! I'm sure that I'm going to end up in jail before this is all over, Roz." Ian went to a wall and pounded his fist against it.
"Don't say that...don't even think such thoughts, Ian..."
"Look," he turned back to face her, "I know that I pissed it all away with Hannah, but I'm as bad as my own father, apparently—I didn't love her, Roz. You ended everything and she was just...there...and then she was pregnant. I knew when I married her that I wasn't doing the right thing, because I still loved you..."
"And you had the bad grace to name your daughter 'Rosie', Ian? God! How could you?"
"She has a middle name, you know; I'm sure that Hannah will start using it, now."
"Oh...Ian...it's all such a mess; a mess that I helped to make..." Roz buried her face in her hands; before she knew anything Ian was upon her, upon his knees and wresting her hands away to face him.
"And how is that? I was free, Roz, and so were you, Harold was gone—as gone from you as my father was from my mother."
"Maybe—"
"No 'maybe'."
"Look, Harold applying for that job and taking it—was a test; another test, Ian, that I failed magnificently. He thought that I didn't want to leave Lil, but it was more than her; more than you; this has been my home all of my life and I want no other, it's as simple as that. And I understood what Sydney meant for him; he needed to take it.
"So, yes, I was free—but I was still married. If for nothing else, I should have resisted your love, because, damn what the world thinks of relationship like ours, my son was watching, Ian; watching me betray his father...watching me betray him! He was your best friend, and there I was, acting like some kind of pedo, or something, for Christ's sake..."
"That's not true, we were grown, Roz..."
"Barely...Ian...if I hadn't been acting like a spoiled, bratty, senseless idiot!" Roz tore one her hands away from his and beat at her chest. "I would have waited to fully enjoy your love, damn judgment from the world and my son, when I truly was a free woman. We fucked it all up, Ian, both of us equally, from the very beginning."
"Alright, I can completely agree with that. And I feel the same about this place, and so does mum. But Harold and Tom—they're the same, Roz. Harold left for a lot of reasons, sure, but he left you because he was always jealous of you and mum...and what you two had with us, before anything ever started up. I always felt it; always felt his resentment. He was nice enough, but he never took me on after dad died; up to that point he was like an uncle to me, but after dad died...I always felt like he was just...tolerating me. If we'd been closer...maybe I would have...would have...done better about keeping my feelings for you to myself."
"So you want to blame him, now?"
"That's not what I'm saying at all, Roz. I'm just thinking of all the things that might have gone differently, that's all. I didn't have a loving father to look up to; dad loved me but he was always after his own pleasure, you know? We had so few moments where he was really about me..."
Roz knew that Ian was referring to the moment immortalized in the picture in her photo album, the one he had always been drawn to after his father died, of the two of them sitting together on her deck.
"Tom and Harold were so close; are so close, still; I thought maybe, after dad died...oh, it's just stupid. Anyway, I didn't want to be that kind of father, especially once I found out that I was going to be one. I mean, I was mad as all hell when Hannah told me that she was pregnant, but once the little bugger got here...it all kicked in, for her, at least. Hannah can't keep me from her...I'll take her to court..."
"It won't be easy, Ian; and it won't be pretty—now that she knows about us. If you have any hope of winning your case you'd still have to end it with me."
"Still trying to push me away, Roz?" Ian's accusation came at Roz through his clipped, angry words.
"It's too late for happy endings, Ian! For the two of us, anyway. If you ever want one with your daughter there's no other way."
"Really? While Tom and my mother pursue theirs? He's having his cake and eating it too..."
"Not anymore, Ian..."
"Sure, he is; he 'cares' for mum, but he doesn't love her, really; it's the same with Mary. He left here because he wanted to; he married Mary because he wanted to; he fucks other women besides them both because he wants to—"
"How do you know this, Ian?"
"Harold told me the last time I went to Sydney; pointed the girl out to me during a rehearsal I visited while I was there. He said he didn't know what to say or if he should say anything to Tom, but he was worried for him. Mary has been noticed by some fucking American producer, it seems, and there's been talk of New York—a Broadway play—Tom was fucking around, apparently, before, but now...it's like he's on a mission, or something."
"Of course he is, he's doing what he should have done long before he got married; before he got started with Lil..." Roz had gone to that distant, pragmatic place of melancholy reality that Ian hated so much.
"He had a girlfriend before Lil...he was no virgin..." Ian angrily reminded her, hoping to snap her back into his reality.
"Yes, Ian, a girlfriend; you've both been so insulated here; you even gave up most of your other mates after you took up with us. You'll be doing the same, yourself, soon," she said wistfully as she looked away from him, confirming that he was losing her fast.
"Stop doing that!" Ian erupted at her and pulled her up forcefully from the bed.
"Ian? What is this? Let me go..."
"I've done everything that I want to do, Roz! I'm where I want to be. I could be happy if you would just let me be!"
"Ian..."
"Listen to me, Roz," he eased his grip upon her, "I've loved you...ever since I can remember; sure it was a boyish crush when I was young, but that crush died and real love was born; born in me and acted upon when I was a man. I love you for so many reasons: the way you laugh with your whole body; I love looking into your eyes, because they never lie to me even when your lips do; I've loved you in your strong moments—and being there for you in the moments when you weren't so much; all of my life there's been you, Roz..."
Roz gave him sad little smile.
"And you were so beautiful..."
Roz sobered very suddenly and shrank a little away from him, then sank back down upon the edge of the bed.. "Ian..."
"I hated what you did when you ended it with us—but eventually I came to my senses—I understand and still don't understand it; I still hate it. I thought I would never be able to forgive you; but you were thinking for us all; in all of this...wrong that's not as wrong as it had to be, or is, damn it...you were the best of us, Roz. You sacrificed everything; lost everything—your husband; me; and now you think, Rosie. I'm sorry you sacrificed everything for nothing; sorry that I didn't do better by you. It might have all worked if I'd just married a woman that I loved at all. But I don't know if that's really possible. If she's not you."
"Ian, I—"
"You are still...so...beautiful—inside and out, my Roz."
"I won't look like this forever, Ian."
"It's not just about your outside, Roz..."
"Nevertheless, you need to live your life, Ian, finally—"
"Did you not just hear me? There's nobody else for me, Roz, would you please get that through that beautiful head of yours? And guess what? I won't look like this forever, either."
"Yes, but I'm going to not look like this a lot sooner than you're going to not look like that."
"'Till death do us part...in sickness and in health...' I made that vow to the wrong person, Roz—I won't make that mistake again. And I don't need a piece of paper to make it to you. But I want one."
Roz felt like her heart was going to burst apart. "Oh, Ian; whether you do or don't, even if we stay away from each other and you get shared custody of Rosie—the child would never understand us being together! She knows me as her grandmother!"
"She knows mum as her grandmother..."
"In what world—" Roz began, her voice was full of anguish.
"I'll work it out, Roz—we'll work it out—and hopefully, one day, she'll understand..."
"She wouldn't have to understand anything, except your love for her and her love for you if I was out of the picture, Ian. I'm thinking of the three of you—Rosie. Lil and you!"
"And I appreciate that, but I'm not going to have this argument again right now, Roz; there is a way to work this out, for you and Alice, as well. There is a way; it's not going to be easy; there is the great possibility that I won't be successful; but that's not going to stop me from trying."
"We should talk to Lil and Tom about it, then; I don't know what to do about the other issue and Tom is leaving for Sydney, soon..."
"I know, I don't, either," Ian said softly as he drew the worried woman up into his gentle embrace, "but I need an even calmer head than this before I talk to him again..." he pushed some wayward locks out of her eyes, "and stop trying to push me away from you," he took her face into his hands and tilted it up so that she could meet his gaze, "because I guarantee you..." Ian wiped the tears gently away from the corners of her eyes with his thumbs, "that's something that will never work, Roz, and the only thing that I'll ever be happy to see you fail at..."
Ian sealed the promise of his words by enveloping Roz in his strong, loving embrace; she melded into the crush of him, as perfectly as she always had, lost in the heartache of having been missed and the ecstasy of being reclaimed.