Evenings are lonely now. Regina's chair sits empty, her book on the table beside it with a pen slotted inside, serving as a bookmark. She can't curl up so her knees are under her chin anymore. Or pull a blanket over herself or push her reading glasses right to the end of her nose so she looks like an irritated headmistress. So I just go up to bed now, where her side is always cold and the soft glow of life comes only from my lamp. No reading, no talking about the day that's gone or the one that lies ahead. Just silence. That's when it works best. I'm getting better at imagining her there; the curve of her hips under the covers and the way her dark hair splayed out over the pale pillow. That's all it takes, just make-believing she's there and then I can finally sleep.
Another session with Archie. Clichés fall out of his mouth like curse words, about how he can't possibly know how I feel and in time he's sure it will all get easier. Except it's been more than ten weeks. Ten weeks, one day and fourteen hours actually, since time stopped and life as I knew it tumbled into oblivion. So I cry and wail and shout. Mostly shout. It's the only way I can seem to lift even a billionth of a percent of this cloud of rage and confusion and longing that hovers perpetually over my head. Only, he doesn't shout back. I want him to. I need him to yell back at me so I'm not the crazy one for bellowing at someone as meek and kind and good as Archie. He just sits there and nods whilst shame adds itself to the pile of everything else I'm trying not to feel.
Running sometimes works. The wind whips my face and the rhythmic pounding of my feet on the pavement puts my thoughts to sleep until all I'm concentrating on is my laboured breathing. In, out, in, out, whizzing from concrete to the forgiving sink of the sand and down towards that inky blue infinity. Chest tightening, I stop and buckle over. The cool salty air hits the back of my throat and makes me gag. I try and figure out why it is that my body involuntarily brings me here so often but the truth is I don't know. Before I realize it, I'm getting in. Striding purposefully as if I know where I'm going. The cold isn't even shocking, just numbing me bit by bit; feet, ankles, calves, legs, stomach until I can't touch the ground without pulling my head underneath the rolling waves. The salt on my lips takes me by surprise; something else I've had to forget to make room for the brooding anger and unfairness of it all that's clogging up my brain.
Effort fluctuates. I can run all the way to the beach and haul my sodden self back in minutes but for anything else, I have to concentrate on telling my arms and legs to move. Getting in the shower is the worst. My limbs feel so heavy they seem incapable of independent movement. The shower's on the highest setting but it's too much to ask my hand to turn the dial and the water is so hot, it's fooling my nerves into thinking it's freezing. I've been in the shower for ten minutes but it feels like hours. I wonder if that's what it's going to be like now. Minutes are so painful but they'll drag into hours of torture until I burst out the other side of whatever this dam is that's holding me in a limbo where nothing is as it seems.
"Gina?"
"Hmm?" Brushing through her raven locks, she looks into the mirror and catches my eye in the reflection. That's how I know I'm in love – even the sight of her brushing her hair sends a tingle up my spine and stands the hairs on my arms up on end.
"I think I'm gonna jump in the shower now so if Henry comes in early tomorrow for presents, I won't feel icky."
She raises her eyebrows at that final word and turns away from the mirror to face me. "Your collection of made up words never cease to baffle me," she purrs, getting up and making her way over to the bed to dispense with the ridiculous amount of pillows and cushions residing there. I have never understood the point of decorative pillows that take time to arrange in the morning, but are taken off in the evening before bed. Still, it's one of the intricate puzzle pieces that slots in with all the others to make the amazing woman before me.
She pulls back three layers of satin sheets and slips her legs underneath, resting back against the headboard.
"Can't your shower wait?" she asks, pulling the covers down from my side and patting the empty space beside her. "You've only just come home."
I can't resist, I'm utterly obsessed with her. If she asked me to dive head-first into a smouldering volcano, I would. Her radiant smile glows in the light of her bedside lamp and before I know it, I'm nestled in bed with my legs stretched out in front of me and the soft weight of her head pressing into my thighs as she looks up into my face. I spend a minute just looking. Looking through those deep, chocolate portals and into the mind and soul of the person I'm lucky enough to be married to. People say that's what love is; sitting together in comfortable silence. But they're wrong. It isn't just sitting, it's using the quiet for wordless conversations and silent devotion.
"Can you believe our son is going to be another year older tomorrow?"
Her voice brings my thoughts back to now. I shake my head slightly and a sigh escapes my lips before I answer.
"Nope. I still feel like he's that little kid who showed up at my door. After everything he's been through, sometimes I forget he's turning into a young man."
"A very handsome young man, thanks to you," Regina smiles up at me and I emit a small laugh.
"I can't take any of the credit for how he's turned out though. That's all you," I say, twisting a lock of her hair between my thumb and forefinger.
"Em-" I can feel her preparing something about a joint effort, the last few years, being a great mom, but I interrupt.
"He's a Mills, Regina, through and through. But I like that. In case you haven't noticed, I have a thing for people with that surname," I say with a wink.
There is another pause before I say something I've been meaning to for a long time.
"I'm glad it was you, Gina." She looks at me quizzically, waiting for me to expand. "After that day, after I gave..." She's worried now, eyebrows knitted, wondering what it is I'm going to divulge. I take a deep breath. "When I gave him away, I'm glad he came to you."
She lifts her head and sits up in front of me, mouth slightly open as though she's trying to think of something to say. She decides against it though and her reply is a kiss so light and yet so full of feeling it makes my knees weak even though they're stretched out in front of me.
"You, Mrs. Swan Mills, made me the happiest woman in the world before I even met you. It just took having you in my life to teach me how to show it." She's so sincere, so genuine.
"You know what, that shower can wait," I decide out loud. "Henry will be so busy ripping open his presents, he won't even notice what I look like!" I shuffle down in the bed until my head is on the pillow and Regina does the same. Within minutes we are asleep as always, in each others arms. Safe, where we belong.
