Ray thinks that love (and trust) is letting your wife travel all the way to Florida to be with a man you don't like (or trust) in his time of need. And then letting her fly to New York with said man without asking any questions.
So what does it say about him that he's cutting off his vacation to fly from Hawaii to New York without telling Liz that he's coming? He decides not to examine that question too closely.
The town car pulls up outside of Donaghy's house at 10 p.m. He rings the doorbell and a man in a doctor's white coat whom he vaguely recognizes from Donaghy's wedding answers the door.
"Can I help you?"
Ray clears his throat. "I'm looking for Liz Lemon."
The doctor nods wisely. "Ah, another case of scurvy."
"Uh, no. Liz is my wife."
"Oh, of course! You must be…" The doctor's brow creases in puzzlement.
"Ray."
"You're gay? That explains a lot. I thought Liz seemed dissatisfied with her sex life."
Ray grits his teeth. "No. I'm Ray. May I see my wife, please?"
He pushes his way inside. He's not sure what he's expecting, not sure what he's doing. He just knows that the mild suspicion and jealousy he's felt ever since his wedding flared into something powerful and overwhelming when Liz answered Donaghy's call about his mother in the middle of their lovemaking.
He walks down a long hall with several closed doors on either side—bedrooms, he's sure. He doesn't check there first. He doesn't want to believe that Liz is in one of those rooms (even if there's a good chance she'd just be sleeping alone in a guest bedroom).
He finds them in the living room. The final credits of The Empire Strikes Back are scrolling on Donaghy's enormous flat screen TV. Liz and Donaghy are on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, their heads resting against each other, asleep. Liz looks more contented than she ever does with Ray.
Ray stares, his fists clenching and unclenching.
"Adorable, aren't they?" The doctor comes up to stand beside him, his voice making Ray jump. "You know, I always thought they'd make a perfect couple. Just imagine their children—beautiful, smart, neurotic, with very confused political views." The doctor sighs happily, then frowns. "Who did you say you were again?"
"Ray!" he snaps.
Donaghy's eyes fly open and he gazes at Ray with something like disgust in his expression. He nudges Liz. "Lemon, wake up."
Liz mumbles, nuzzles her nose against Donaghy's shoulder.
Donaghy's smile is soft as he prods her again. "Lemon, there's cheese."
Liz flies to her feet, he eyes wild. "What? Where?" She spots Ray and goes very still. "What are you doing here?"
He's not imagining the accusation in her tone. He admits to himself that she's probably right to be upset by his unheralded appearance.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay," he says.
Her eyes narrow. "You didn't trust me. This is the first time I've seen Jack in months, and you didn't trust me with him!"
He glares at her. "Of course I trust you. It's him I don't trust!"
She takes two angry steps toward him and pokes him in the chest. "This is worse than the time you tapped our phone line in case I was making calls to New York without telling you."
Donaghy snorts, but when Ray looks at him his expression is angelic. Ray takes Liz's arm but she jerks it away.
"I told you, the tap was there so that I could record conversations with telemarketers who violated the No Call List and sue their companies."
"Yeah? What about the time I stayed late at work and you snuck in wearing a janitor's costume to spy on me?"
"I thought you might want to role play?" he says weakly.
Donaghy snorts again; Ray takes that to mean that Liz's ex-boss is well aware of her attitude towards "sexual shenanigans," as she puts it.
"Then there was the time I had lunch with a work colleague and you paid a waiter to spy on me; the time you snuck a hidden camera into a box of chocolates you gave me—I ate that camera on accident, by the way; and let's not forget that you accused me of flirting with a woman in the changing rooms at Bob's Snorkel Spectacular four days ago!"
Ray splutters. Donaghy says, "I don't blame you for the last one, Ray; I've always said her shoes are bicurious."
"This has nothing to do with Jack and me," Liz says, crossing her arms over her chest. "You don't trust me, Ray. You never have."
Ray snaps, tired of being made out to be the bad guy. "How can I? How can I when you've been head over heels for him—" he points an accusing finger at Donaghy "—since before you and I even met?"
Liz pales.
The doctor gasps. ("Did you know there's an inside pocket in my coat?" he asks, delighted, only to be ignored by them all.)
Donaghy's eyes sparkle.
From one of the bedrooms, an old woman shouts, "What the hell's going on out there?"
"If that's really what you think," Liz says slowly (Ray notes that she doesn't confirm or deny his accusation), "why did you marry me in the first place?"
"I thought I could handle being second best. I love you, Liz. But you left our first vacation together since we moved to Seattle to console a man who couldn't care less if his mother died." He takes a deep breath, and, feeling as though his heart is being ripped from his chest, pulls off his wedding ring. "I love you, Liz," he says, "but I can't do this anymore. Also, it really hurts when you kick me in your sleep with those shoes you always wear to bed."
"You can't leave me, Ray," she says, her cheeks reddening, rushing to pull off her own wedding ring. "I'm going to leave you first."
"Okay, now you're just being childish. Goodbye, Liz. My lawyers will be in touch." He heads for the door. Liz races to catch up with him.
He pauses with his hand on the doorknob and for a moment they just look at each other. I love her, he thinks. But it's not enough.
"I would never have cheated on you," Liz tells him. "I would have come back to Seattle in a few days and we could have been happy."
"You've been cheating on me since before we got married," he says, and leaves.
He doesn't go straight to his car. He listens through the door, not sure whether he's hoping to hear her cry.
"Get that smug grin off your face," Liz says. "The most successful relationship I've ever had just fell apart."
"I'm not grinning," Donaghy replies. (Ray can hear the grin in his voice.) "I would never dream of taking pleasure in your unhappiness."
"And don't think I'm going to hop into your bed or something! This wasn't about you, Jack."
"Lemon, I promise I won't even make a move on you until the ink on all of our divorce papers is dry. You are coming back to New York, aren't you?"
"As soon as possible."
"Excellent."
There's a moment of silence and Ray imagines that Donaghy is tucking a strand of Liz's hair behind her ear (or picking a piece of spinach out of her teeth).
"In case you need the incentive," Donaghy adds, "you should know that I've purchased the plant in Mexico where Sabor de Soledad is made and for our first date I plan to fly us down there to eat some straight from the bull semen-cheese machine."
In a tone Ray has never heard from her before, Liz breathes, "I want to go to there."
Bunny thinks that love isn't the most important thing in the world. (She's lying to herself.)
As her current situation proves, she can live without love just fine. She can be happy without love.
She doesn't have love, but she has the affection of a handsome, successful, passionate man. She doesn't have love, but she has a beautiful home in which to live. She doesn't have love, but with Jack's help she can put her three younger siblings through college, as well as finally finish her own neuroscience degree at NYU with the possibility of going on to medical school if her grades are good enough. She doesn't have love, but she has so much more than so many people.
So she doesn't complain about Jack's inattentiveness when he's at home. She doesn't confront him about his long hours at work. She doesn't listen when he calls out another woman's name during (rather extraordinary) sex.
She never mentions Liz Lemon to him. She doesn't want to know what he'd say.
Love isn't the most important thing in the world, she thinks, but love tends to be more enduring than anything else in life. And that's why it really hurts to know that she doesn't have Jack's love—because someone else does, and that means that sooner or later Bunny's going to lose him and everything that's come with being married to him.
Jack asks her one day why she's frowning into her salad. Knowing what he expects (wants) from her, she plasters a smile on her face and says, "I just thinking about how much worse my life was before I met you."
The answer satisfies him, but it leaves a sour taste in her mouth.