Rachel sat on the couch of her dad's house, fidgeting. Finn was due to arrive in ten minutes. She hadn't gone all out on her appearance. The outfit was simple: a cream silk shirt and black pants, and black shoes with a low heel. Her hair was down, about her shoulders; her makeup, minimal. She was forty-two, and she knew who she was, and this wasn't about enticing him, or even winning him back. It was about closure.
She was used to planning things in her life, much as she would plan a performance. Even when she was with Tom, they were simpatico enough that she didn't have to feel like she was standing on shifting sand. As she did now. Finn, once a constant in her life, an anchor around which she could plan, had become a completely unknown variable. Even his very love for her was questionable; the prospect of hearing straight from him that he no longer loved her was the most likely outcome of this meeting. But she had to know, one way or another. Rachel simply could not go on like this, stuck in limbo. And if he didn't love her anymore, if there was no chance she could be his Rachel and he her Finn again, then it would be the last time Finn Hudson could break her heart.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
At nine AM, the doorbell rang (he had always been punctual, she found herself remembering) and she stood up. Part of her wanted to refuse to answer, to give him a taste of what she had experienced. But the feeling passed. Her mouth went dry as she opened the door.
He was dressed much like he was Wednesday, a red polo, khaki pants and casual leather chukkas. There was a small white bakery bag in his hand.
"Hey." He said it quietly, with a soft smile, tinged with an underlying sadness.
"Hey. Come on in."
She watched him look around the house, remembering; not much had changed.
"My dads are in Columbus, spending today and tomorrow with Daddy's sister." He nodded. There was a time, she thought, when that kind of news would have produced a different kind of response, from both of them.
"Want some coffee?" she asked, eyeing the bag.
"Yes, please. Black." She took the bag from his hand and looked inside. They were kosher cookies, with black-and-white icing, from the Jewish bakery in Lima. Her favorite.
She smiled, and said she'd be right back. She returned with a tray laden with their coffee, the cookies, and fresh banana bread she had baked that morning. She sat on the couch with him.
He looked surprised when he saw the banana bread.
"I don't hate you, Finn, " Rachel said, handing him his cup and the plate. "And apparently, " she took a bite out of a cookie and sighed, "you don't hate me either."
"Not only that, we both drink our coffee black now," he said, laughing.
That would have been too easy, to slide back into their old ways over baked goods and coffee. Unfortunately, twenty-three years stood in their way, and Rachel needed to get down to business. But it was a start.
"I was sorry to hear about Alice," she told him, honestly. "The two of you did a wonderful job raising Nell and Sarah."
"Thanks. And thanks for working with Nell—she loves you and your friends."
Rachel sipped her coffee. "It's my pleasure. I've become very fond of her."
They spent a few seconds just looking at each other. Once, they had the luxury of seeing each other all of the time. Now, after two different lives, it was like a rare gift. It couldn't erase what had happened, but somehow, it was enough to nudge them towards resolution, whatever that was.
"Rachel…" Finn began, "I'm here, as you asked. And I'll try and answer anything you need to know." His demeanor was resigned, regretful, but, she noticed, he didn't seem like he wanted to be anywhere else.
So she jumped in.
"Did you love me when you sent me away?"
She half-expected him to come back with an outraged retort; questioning his love for her back then would have been unthinkable. He didn't.
"Yes, but as it all happened I immediately began to question whether I deserved to love you at all. And as the train pulled away , and as my own heart was breaking, I knew I had fucked up everything so badly it couldn't be repaired. And it couldn't be stopped, because I had already signed the enlistment commitment."
He looked miserably at her.
"I realized I had deceived, manipulated and betrayed the person I was supposed to have loved, on the day she thought she was marrying me."
She listened, but soon her arms were crossed.
"Okay," she said, "so you felt you didn't deserve to love me. That doesn't explain the silence, Finn. You never answered one letter, text, or email. Not one."
"I was ashamed," he replied, "Every note from you was a reminder of what I'd done and I couldn't face it."
"And the tether? What about that? Was it real for you? It sure was for me."
"I felt it."
"Oh, really?" Rachel couldn't help herself now; the resentment was coming up like bile. "You apparently didn't feel it enough to prevent you from loving and marrying someone else, now did you? It didn't prevent you from having the beautiful children we should have had, did it?"
She was standing up, tears coming, hot and angry. He simply sat quietly, listening.
"Let me tell you about a tether, Finn. Let me tell you about that connection that strangled at birth every relationship I've tried to have since that fucking day you left me, even the one I thought could finally save me from you.
"He wanted me to marry him, Finn. And almost all of me wanted to marry him, too, because he was kind and gentle and he loved me for who I was, but I couldn't because one piece of my soul was locked into waiting to get final word from the fucking Universe! I had to break a beautiful man's heart because I feared, deep down, that my own heart was chained to a sinking ship, and the last thing I wanted was to drag Tom Foley down with me."
Rachel paused for breath, and to wipe the tears away. Finn just sat with a distant look.
"How did you do it, Finn?" she asked shaking her head in wonder. "How did you break the tether enough to marry Alice? Or did you simply love her more than me?"
She regretted saying it the minute the words left her mouth, desperately trying to wish them back, to no avail.
He wasn't listening. Something else had occupied his mind. He sat, almost blank, then spoke.
"I got your last letter on a Wednesday afternoon." His voice was almost a monotone, and his eyes were dead, devoid of emotion, which frightened her. "I was living with my parents in Lima after the army, helping Burt. I read it, and I knew you had finally given up. So I went to my truck and proceeded to get almighty drunk that night."
Rachel sat back down to listen.
"Sometime around one, I was sitting on a bed in a motel room, with a half-empty bottle of bourbon, and your letter. I read it three times, partly because I was drunk, but also because I wanted to make sure I understood what you said. And when I was sure…" He stopped, and even though his face looked emotionless, a tear rolled down his right cheek. "When I was sure, I reached for the gun on the nightstand."
The living room, which had been quiet, suddenly was filled with a strange noise. Rachel then realized it was her, hand clasped to her mouth, sobbing "No, no, no," over and over and over, until the words merged into an agonized, elemental moan.
A tear rolled down his left cheek, too.
"I put the gun to my head."
"No, Finn, please," she begged. But he couldn't stop.
"My eyes closed, and I saw an image of you in your wedding dress, because that was the last thought I wanted to have on earth."
Her wracking sobs eased for a second, enabling her to whisper, "What stopped you?"
His blank expression gave way to simple sadness.
"I started to see a different image. I saw my father."
She wiped her eyes.
"Your father?" her voice was nasal, tear-swollen.
"Yeah…" The sadness eased into a look of wonder. "It was as if he had come to tell me not to follow in his footsteps. All this time I had been trying to redeem him, and he redeemed himself."
"Oh baby, he saved you. I can't believe it. That's amazing."
She instinctively moved closer and pulled him into a hug, which he clumsily returned, but after a few seconds, he laid his head on her shoulder and started to sob.
"I'm sorry, Rachel, my God, I'm sorry. I didn't want you to know any of this, I didn't want you saddled with my guilt and shame, too. I-I got help at the VA, and part of that was going to school…"
"And you met Alice," Rachel said, kindly, "and she made all that guilt and shame go away, right? " He nodded into her shoulder.
She let out a long sigh, holding him, for the first time in twenty-three years. Oddly, she felt no bitterness anymore, because she realized that the people she loved were actually far more fragile than she ever imagined. All Rachel wanted to do now was to bring Finn into her circle of friends, where he could be comforted and loved, and healed. And she wanted his children there, too. Like family.
"Do you think I could make it go away, too?" she asked.
"Would you want to, after all I've done?" His arms were around her now, holding her tightly.
"Yeah," she replied softly, "I want to," and held his head to her breast, and kissed his brow.
They remained like that until the afternoon shadows began to gather.
