Chapter 36

Saturday morning...

Abby came to Ducky's house and hesitated before knocking on the door. She knew that Tim would be willing to come with her. She just wanted it to be fun. She wanted the two of them to be able to enjoy being in each other's company for a while. She hoped that this would work.

She let out her breath and knocked.

"Come in, Abigail!"

Abby smiled at Ducky's voice and came in.

"I'm in the kitchen!"

She followed his voice, trying not to look for Tim.

"Good morning, Ducky."

"You've got quite the day planned out, I hear."

"Paint," she said.

"Yes, Timothy told me. I'm actually quite happy that he accepted your invitation."

"Where is he?"

"Showering. He said that he didn't know if you'd be wanting to paint today or not, but he was going to shower anyway."

"I don't know if we will be or not."

"Well, you have the whole day for it. I think it will help you both to spend some time together."

"I hope so." Abby hesitated for a moment. "Ducky?"

"Yes?"

"Do you hate me for what I did to Tim?"

"Am I disappointed? Absolutely. Do I think it was a callous and cruel thing to do? Yes."

Abby nodded and dropped her eyes.

"But I also see that you are trying to fix it now. It's not for me to hold a grudge."

Ducky put his hands on Abby's shoulders and then kissed her forehead.

"You have done nothing to me, Abigail, and the person you hurt is the person you should be focusing on."

"I know."

A door opened upstairs and they heard Tim's heavy tread coming down the stairs.

"Timothy, Abigail is here."

Abby raised her eyebrows at Ducky who just smiled. She realized that he was warning Tim so that he wasn't surprised at her presence.

"Already?"

"I was excited," Abby called.

Tim came into the kitchen and, while his smile wasn't quite as open as she might hope, but he did smile.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" he asked. "I haven't. I was lazy this morning."

"I ate before I came, but I can wait."

"Okay."

Tim clearly felt awkward, but he smiled at Abby again as he grabbed a bowl and a spoon. Then, he got some cereal out of the cabinet and turned around.

"Uh...are you going to watch me eat?" he asked.

"Are you saying you'd like to eat alone, Timothy?" Ducky asked, barely suppressing a grin.

"Yeah. I think I am, Ducky."

"Very well. Abigail and I will chat in the study."

"Okay."

Tim waved at them as they walked out.

"Will he take long?" Abby asked.

"I doubt it," Ducky said. "He just felt awkward being the center of attention."

"But he wouldn't have been!"

"He would have felt that he was, and Timothy has become rather sensitive about people watching him lately. It's more to do with his work situation than your marital problems."

"Oh." Abby looked at her hands and then looked up at Ducky. "Thanks for giving Tim a place to stay, Ducky. With everything that's happened...I think that Tim would have left DC completely if...if you hadn't been there to...to defend him."

"It was my pleasure, Abigail, and I'm happy to be of service. Will you be asking him to return home?"

"He told me that he wasn't ready to come back yet, but I'm hoping that he will be soon."

"Don't be afraid to suggest it again if it seems like a good idea to you. Timothy is still in that state of uncertainty; so he might wait."

Abby sighed. "This is so complicated."

"Indeed."

"All this...from one really, really stupid decision I made."

"Yes."

After a few minutes, Tim came into the study.

"I'm ready."

Abby jumped up. "Great! Let's go!"

She almost grabbed his arm, but then she stopped, unsure if she should do that. They walked together out of Ducky's house and got into Abby's car.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"So...where do you want to go, Tim?" Abby asked.

"I don't really care."

"Lowe's, Home Depot? Sherwin-Williams?"

Tim smiled. "I don't care, Abbs. You're driving. You can pick."

"But, Tim!"

Tim laughed. "Abby...sometimes, it really doesn't matter. These stores...they're all the same to me. Whichever is closest is fine."

Abby sighed. "I just don't want to mess this up again."

They pulled to a stop at a light and Tim reached out and massaged one of Abby's shoulders.

"Picking a store won't matter, Abby. ...but I'm going to try to be more honest about when things do matter."

"Okay."

"You can pick the store."

Abby laughed a little. "I don't know which one to go to, either."

Tim laughed aloud. "Figures. Which one is closest?"

"Sherwin-Williams is close to our house."

"Okay. Let's go there."

"Okay."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

When they went into the store, Abby brought one of the pillows with her so that they could pick a wall color that would match their new piece of furniture.

"There's a lot of paint in here," Abby said.

"Yeah."

"What do you think?"

"We'll have to have something with brown in it. We can't go black."

"Well, we're already black. We wouldn't need to repaint it the same color."

"True. So...what do you think?"

"You first."

"Well...I'm not sure you'll like the idea, but...I think we should go lighter on the walls."

"How much lighter?" Abby asked.

"Quite a bit lighter." Tim walked over to the paint swatches and started flipping through them. "Like this."

Abby looked at it. It was a lot lighter. Her automatic reaction was to insist on something dark because she liked dark...but then, she realized that the whole point of this was for them to work together.

"Well...okay...but...we need to find something dark to offset that." Abby looked at the swatches herself and she grinned. "Okay, Tim...I have a wacky idea."

Tim smiled in response. "I'm afraid to ask."

"What if we painted the ceiling red?"

"The ceiling?"

"Yeah! We have those cool trim pieces on the ceiling...and all the trim around the windows. We could paint them one color...and then paint the ceiling itself red...to match the pillows!"

"But...the ceiling?"

"It would be fun to try it. I've never done it before."

Tim looked at the swatches for a few minutes.

"So...we paint the walls this lighter color...the ceiling...red...and what about the trim?"

"Something darker to go with the couch...um..."

Abby started flipping through the swatches. Tim leaned over her shoulder without thinking. This was as close as they'd been in a long time. He pointed...just as Abby pointed at the same one.

"This one," they said together.

"I think we agree," Tim said after a few seconds of surprised silence. Abby turned around and looked at him.

"It's almost a first, isn't it?"

"For a long time."

"Are you okay with the ceiling?" Abby asked.

"I guess we can try it...but it's going to be weird."

"That fits...doesn't it?"

Tim chuckled softly. "Probably does."

"What about the bookshelves?"

"You know...with the lighter stuff...they might still fit. Let's wait and see if we're going to have to repaint them."

"Okay. How much paint will we need?"

"Let's ask the experts...which I definitely am not." Tim started to look around.

Again, Abby nearly protested that they could figure it out for themselves, but then, she stopped. There was nothing wrong with asking for help. They found one of the employees and explained what they were trying to do. He was interested in their experiment and was able to help them figure out how much paint to buy, whether they wanted gloss or matte, what primer they'd need to cover up the black paint on the walls. They got some rollers, covers, brushes, drop cloths.

Feeling a bit poorer, they walked out of the store and loaded everything into Abby's car.

"So...you want to start?"

Tim looked at her and nodded.

"Yeah. I do have to warn you, though, Abby...that I'm still not at a hundred percent. I wish I was, but I'm not. I'll get tired pretty fast once we start painting."

"Oh...okay!" Abby hadn't even thought of that. "We'll do what we can."

"All right."

They drove to their house, and Abby was insisting on thinking of it that way. She would continue to think of it as their house.

When they got there, Abby sent Tim in with the lighter stuff.

"Be careful! Jethro's missed you!"

Tim laughed...and she loved hearing him laugh. It had been a long time since he'd seemed happy at all.

Inside, Jethro frolicked around Tim, excited to see him...until they were forced to exile the German shepherd to the backyard. The last thing they needed was an excited dog getting tangled in their legs or deciding to play in the paint.

"Where do you want to start?" Abby asked.

"We won't be able to paint it all in a day. We'll have to let parts dry so that we can tape them off. So...do you want to do the trim first or the rest of it?"

Abby was really excited to see the ceiling, but the trim made more sense, and that would tax Tim's reserves less.

"Let's go with the trim."

"All right. You want to tape the ceiling?"

Abby smiled. "Sure. I'll do that. You can tape everywhere else."

"We're going to have to move the furniture into the middle of the room."

"Right."

They worked on that together, and it took only about half an hour to get everything away from the walls and the drop cloth over it all to protect it from any dripping paint. Then, Abby got on the ladder and started taping off the trim on the ceiling while Tim knelt on the floor and started taping off the baseboards. They didn't talk much during this time...but the silence wasn't particularly awkward. They just focused on their tasks.

By the time they'd finished moving furniture and taping, it was getting close to noon; so Abby declared a pause while they got something to eat. Just some leftovers, nothing amazing. While they were sitting together, not working, not painting...then, the silence got a bit awkward.

"Tim?"

"Yeah?"

"How is it going so far?"

"It's only been a week, you know."

"I know, but are you feeling any better?"

Tim looked at his plate and then at Abby. "Sometimes. It's going to take a while, though, Abbs. It's not going to happen all at once."

"I know. I'm not always very patient."

"No, you're not," Tim said, but he did smile while he said it.

They ate for a few more minutes in silence...then, Tim broke it.

"What did we do right, Abby?"

"Huh?"

"In our marriage. What did we do right?"

Abby's heart clenched. "Do you think we didn't do anything?"

"No. I'm asking."

"We never fought about having to work late."

Tim smiled. "No, we didn't. ...I like how we dealt with dinner. Maybe we should have cooked more, but we did it together. I like that."

"What do you mean?" Abby asked. Tim's expression was almost wistful.

"We'd take turns picking it out. We'd have fun with the utensils. We always cleaned up together. It's just nice."

"I liked that, too," Abby said. She hesitated and then added to the list. "I liked what we were doing with the flowers in the back. You know...just after. We were working together."

"Yeah." Tim nodded. He looked at her. "You ready to get back to work?"

"Sure."

They put the dishes in the sink and returned to the living room. They began their first actual painting. They worked in silence for a while.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim had been crawling along the floor while Abby was working on the ceiling trim. It was all right with him to work quietly at first, but he remembered one of the things his therapist had said to him, and he decided he needed to ask the questions. He had been told that his biggest problem was that he avoided confrontation and just gave in...instead of insisting on talking about things.

"So...what did we do wrong?" Tim asked.

"What?"

Tim looked up at Abby. "I don't mean this latest...but just when we were married...and happy. What did we do wrong?"

Abby turned around and balanced on the ladder.

"This house," she said after a few seconds.

"I like the house," Tim said. "You were right about it. It's a good house."

"But...the way I convinced you was wrong. We didn't talk about it. I told you I was right and then I got everyone else to agree with me so that you'd have to go along...because I knew they'd take my side. I didn't want to talk."

Tim nodded. "...and I didn't try to get us to talk about it. I just went along."

"We did that too much," Abby said.

"Yeah." Tim turned back to the trim. "I like this color."

"Me, too," Abby said. "It looks good in here."

"And the wall?" Tim asked. There was going to be a huge change.

"I'm not sure about it...but you're not sure about the ceiling either."

Tim laughed. "No. I definitely am not."

"I like hearing you laugh, Tim. It's been too long."

"Haven't felt much like laughing lately."

"I know."

They worked in silence again. Then, Abby broke it.

"Tim?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe...maybe tonight...you could stay here? Then, we could get up and start working tomorrow. We can get the trim taped off and start working on the primer...and the ceiling."

Tim stopped painting. He hadn't really thought about staying here. He was still feeling worried about these steps he was taking. ...but it made logical sense.

"I miss you being here, Tim. This place...just isn't the same without you in it. It feels...so empty."

"I've..." Tim paused. Could he admit it? Yes. "I've missed being here."

"So...will you stay? Tonight? You don't have to be ready to stay permanently. I understand if you want to take longer...just tonight."

"That's a good idea, Abbs. I'll stay tonight."

"In our room? With me?"

Tim took a breath. Part of him wanted nothing more than to be there with his wife, but another part of him wanted nothing less. He put down his paintbrush and got to his feet. He walked over to Abby and put out his hand. She set down her own brush and climbed down the ladder. She took his hand. Tim hesitated. He hadn't been this nervous the first time.

He looked into Abby's eyes. He saw her own anxiety, her regret. Her worry.

Tim took a breath and pulled her to him.

He kissed her. Tim didn't think he'd really kissed Abby since she'd told him what she'd done. He wanted to know if there was still any spark there.

Abby responded instantly to his kiss, and Tim was almost surprised to find that he felt something himself. It wasn't the kind of passion they'd had before, but Tim would have been shocked if it had been there right now.

...but then, he just decided to forgo any analysis, and just abandon himself to the kiss.

When they parted, Tim felt almost like it was their first kiss ever. He looked into Abby's eyes again and saw hope there.

"With you," Tim whispered. "With you."