Gillian gave a slight laugh out of nerves or perhaps it was a sob. Her grip tightened on Cal's fingers and suddenly he was lifting their clasped hands up and pulling her towards him in a hug. "I'm sure none of that made sense," she murmured into his shoulder, her back aching with leaning over so far. She didn't care though, she would take this embrace from him even if it were only half of what she really craved.
"It made sense to me," Cal offered. His hand rubbed her leg, their hands still joined. "It made perfect sense." They were silent for a moment. "I'm sorry Gill. I'm sorry I don't rememba it. It seems like such a slap in the face."
"It's not your fault," she sighed.
"No but that doesn't soften the blow does it? To both of us."
Gillian felt her stomach settle heavily into her abdomen. That was a very good point. This had happened to both of them. With those words they were somehow more united than before. They were both victims of this tragedy and they would need to, and really should, lean on each other to get through it. Sure, in the hospital, they talked and they had almost been on the same side, but that was just not the same as this rushed explanation. This was a much deeper weaving of their worlds together. This is what it had felt like when they had first fallen in love. Gillian remembered. They had slowly but surely intricated their lives together, their souls, until they were inseparable, unbreakable. She wondered if Cal felt the same way right now. Perhaps her theory was not perfect. Back then she had known he was falling for her. She could see it on his face, his demeanour, the very decisions he made every day. But now, he was a much harder read. The mask wasn't back in place (maybe he had forgotten about it), it was just the sheer lack of reaction on his part that meant she couldn't tell what he was thinking anymore. Probably what he was thinking was: huh?
"Gill," Cal breathed. He pushed her back a little and she was confused by the intimate way he said her name and the gesture of distance. But he wasn't looking at her when she saw his face, but over her shoulder slightly. She turned her head. Lewis was hovering. She gave him a smile.
"Hi."
"Hi Mum," Lewis responded quietly.
Gillian opened her arm to suggest that he should come in for a snuggle too and he was quick to take her up on the offer. She kissed the top of his head as he curled into her lap, his knees up around his chin, his elbows folding up against his body, his hands gripping fistfuls of her shirt. It was summer and the hemisphere was hot but Lewis's little body was warm against hers in a comforting familiar kind of way. Cal's arm was still over hers, along the back of the couch so she shifted her hand to stroke the soft hairs of his forearm. His gaze was steady on hers but it seemed less intense all of a sudden. He wasn't gauging her reactions anymore, or staring like he had never seen her before; he was relaxed, like he knew her and wasn't worried any longer. Gillian realised she wasn't worried anymore. She stroked her son's hair.
"What's up with you?" She asked Lewis gently. He turned his head to look up at her with his blue eyes.
"It's lonely," he told her.
"Playing alone?"
He nodded.
"Shall I come upstairs and play trains with you for a little while?" And she realised she had gotten used to it being the two of them too easily. She was disregarding Cal. Who was sitting right opposite her, his leg pressing tightly against hers, the warmth of his torso detectable despite the lump of a four year old in her lap between them. Lewis nodded again, much more vigorously. "Maybe Daddy can come with us too?" She suggested gently. Lewis hesitated, but nodded nonetheless and when Gillian looked up Cal's expression had softened into a smile.
PJ
"Geeze she just opened her mouth and it all came out. All of it. Like a bloody flood. Like she must have been holdin' on to that for foreva," Cal exploded. His conversation with Gillian last night had been rolling around his mind from the moment he stepped down from the kiss at the door (yeah he got goodnight kisses now. The cabbie teased him about his mistress and Cal had growled that that was his wife which was code for 'back off'). That confession of hers kept him awake most of the night, tossing and turning and just going over it and over it and over it. "No wonda she was choosin' the right time to tell me. If she had told me all of that at the start, when I just woke up, or when I was in rehab, she was right, I would have flipped out. I am flippin' out," Cal ranted. "Fuck! You should have heard it. One thing afta the otha afta the next. So much... just..." he floundered for the right word, a nasty reminder that he wasn't a hundred percent yet. "Stuff. So much stuff." He stopped, out of air, his heart still wild and looked over at the doctor who was sitting passively in his leather chair.
Wu folded his hands into his lap. "So you talked."
"God yeah did we talk. No I mean, Gillian talked and I listened but she really talked and I was actually really listenin'," the concept still seemed to surprise him.
"How did that make you feel?"
"Geeze, I don't know," Cal muttered at the cliché. He gave a little wince, forced himself to come up with some kind of answer. "Ovawhelmed. Grateful she told me. Amazed at her strength and bravery. Stunned at all the shit we've gone through. God awful for not rememberin' it. Sickened that she's now alone in it. Want me to go on?"
"Only if you have something to add."
Cal took a steadying breath. "No, I don't have anythin' to add."
They fell silent for a moment.
"I just mean, good lord, the sheer volume of crap afta crap, tons of it and then she blames herself. She took responsibility like it was all her and I can't really even argue against that cos, what do I know? I don't know any betta." He stumbled into silence again. It was taunting him, mocking that he couldn't put together coherent thoughts anymore.
"I thought it would be me," he added wistfully, like that could make it better. Like that would somehow soften the blow. This reality wouldn't seem so topsy turvy if just one thing remained the same. He tended to mess up; Gillian was the one who had her shit together."That I would have done somethin'." He waved a hand, searched for the words. "I can't believe how I was there for her."
"Why does that surprise you?" Doctor Wu prompted.
"Because," Cal started. "That's not me. I'm not usually that kind of guy."
"What kind of guy were you?"
Cal noted the precise tense the psychologist used. It implied he thought Cal had changed. He was like Gillian, in a position to make a distinction. He had seen Cal 'before' hadn't he? Or had witnessed a change of some sort, perhaps even encouraged it. In their discussions so far, Cal hadn't exactly pinned the other man down to any specific details of what they had discussed before. He had merely backed up Gillian's timeline. He seemed to be more interested in talking to Cal about the current problem. Cal supposed that was fair enough. And he seemed to give a toss less about finding out about it as well. This new arrangement seemed to be working so very well for him right now he was content to let it go.
"Oh you know," Cal responded softly but casually as if this were no big deal. "The kind that ran away from signs of emotional difficulties."
Doctor Wu didn't respond.
"I neva used to deal with anythin'."
Cal was silent again, for a few long seconds while he thought about what that really meant. What it really meant was: he had changed. For Gillian or because of Gillian. For the sake of being with her or being in love. He had wanted more children with her. He had wanted a life. He'd asked her to marry him hadn't he? After he had sworn off women and marriage after Zoe. (Zoe! There was a face he hadn't seen in a while.) After he had vowed he would never let anyone get close to him again because they always just left him hurt. Like his mother had.
"I guess the question is," Cal spoke aloud again. "Am I still that man?"
"Which man?"
"The man who doesn't deal, who pushes people away."
"Would you like my opinion?"
"Why not," Cal responded warily. "I pay for your opinion don't I?"
"I'd say the fact that you're here means you want to deal. And the fact that you're talking about Gillian and with Gillian means you're not pushing her away."
Cal studied the doctor for a moment.
"You could have run a mile, like you said, after she gave you all of that information," Wu explained carefully.
"Right fair point," Cal agreed.
"Do you want to talk about what she told you?"
"What about it?"
"Why don't you tell me what it is exactly that you've been through?"
Cal took a deep breath. He had written this down, from what he remembered of their conversation, to keep the timeline straight in his mind. "From the beginnin'?"
Wu nodded solemnly.
"The very beginnin'?" Cal clarified. When the psychologist nodded again and gathered up his notes and a pen, Cal launched into it. "We broke up cos she wanted to be a mother and I didn't want to have more kids. When the adoption thing failed we ended up back together, and ended up getting married. Gillian got pregnant, but had no idea and miscarried. Then we agreed to IVF to have a kid anyway, but only two cycles. Which was horrendous, apparently. But she did get pregnant and we had Lewis, who, through a complication of his birth, has hearin' loss. Durin' the time we were figurin' that out, Gill ran away for the weekend cos she found out she was menopausal and saw her chances at mothahood again goin' right down the drain, even though she hadn't actually said she wanted to try for anotha baby. Then," Cal paused to think. "There was an adoption and I had cance-a. Afta the baby came home she died of cot death. And that pretty much brings us to this." He gestured in front of him. Of course, there were smaller details in there he didn't know about or couldn't quite recall. God only knew how they got back together that first time, or how she had gotten pregnant or how they had discovered Lewis might have hearing loss in the first place.
Doctor Wu's face slowly stilled until his mouth hung open slightly as Cal finished. "Intense huh?" Cal asked him.
The psychologist was quiet for a moment. "You certainly have a history."
Cal shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah a lot of history."
"And that puts you off?"
"No," he responded slowly, honestly. "It's ovawhelmin' sure but it's just more like... I don't know." He huffed. "I don't know what it means." It meant too many things, that's what it meant. It meant that Gillian had finally been truthful with him and told him everything (which was a big step forward in their current relationship). It meant his theory about being a different man was correct (so he really did have something to live up to). It meant they were tied by a rich and complicated history (and had walked out the other side of it still united). It meant they could do it again if they had to (it meant they had to).
