No Pain, No Gain

Maggie stays a couple of days after Thanksgiving. It's really sort of interesting to watch. At times Abby is completely easy and in the moment with Maggie. Then there are the moments when I see her face shift, and I know she's reminded of another place and time, sometimes good, sometimes bad. But she always struggles back. I can see that. Sometimes I think I can actually see her biting her tongue, other times she leaves the room on some excuse. I'm proud of her, and I wonder how she got here from where she was. It's something I need to learn. The letting go of the past to be in the present. I'm working on it. I'm getting there, but she's ahead of me, and that's not something I really expected. I guess I assumed I'd be the teacher not the student. I told you I can be arrogant.

After Maggie leaves, Abby talks me into what I already know we have to do. Get rid of the Viper. It's time, more then time in some ways. But damn, I loved driving that car. To tell you the truth though it's a reminder of a rather uncomfortable time in my life. With Abby gone, dating, being the bachelor that seemed like the thing to do. Problem was I wasn't very good at it. I never knew when to stay or when to go, when to say yes, when to say no, or even how the game was really supposed to be played. Like a baby in the woods. Part of the problem was that none of the women I dated were Abby. They might be pretty, but they didn't have her smile. They might be kind, but not as funny. They might be funny, but not as smart, never quite right.

Anyway we trade in the Viper, for get this, a Volvo,

"They have the best safety record." Abby says confidently.

Whoopee! Okay so I'm really 16. Sue me.

I tell her I'll take her out to dinner to comfort myself and celebrate getting the house back to ourselves.

Over dinner she tells me what is was like to have Maggie visit. The things she remembered, what she liked, what drove her crazy, like never being able to find anything in the kitchen, all of it. It feels amazing. It's like reading a great book. I'm let into the inner sanctum as it were. Which makes me realize how I don't do that for her enough. It's so hard for me to tell her what I'm thinking and feeling. Partly because it's been a lifetime since I've done it, if I ever really did, and partly because I don't want to burden her. Although, I'm beginning to wonder if my silence isn't the bigger burden.

There is something that's been bothering me, but I've felt I shouldn't say anything that she doesn't need to worry about it. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe it's part of the deal, like my past. As we walk to the car I screw up my courage and say it. Hell, if she can do this so can I.

"I know you haven't been really feeling your best, and I know you'll need time after the baby and that it will take some getting used to being a mother, but . . .well . .. .I just . . . I want . . ." I feel really awkward, shy, foolish.

"What Luka?" We stop walking.

I take a deep breath and just say it.

"I want us to feel like lovers. I don't want to lose that. I want to be your husband and your friend and the father of your baby. But I want to be your lover too. Does that make any sense?" I'm so bad at this really. It's like speaking a foreign language in a foreign language. She takes pity on my ineptness.

She reaches up and brushes the hair from my face, rests her hand on my cheek for a second and nods, her eyes are tender, then she shakes her head, a little smile playing across her lips.

"You must be the horniest man alive, I'm as big as a house" there's laughter in her voice. Ah I see, she's letting me off the hook. She's let me know she gets this is important to me, but she's not going to make me go into the gory details like how long I've been feeling this way, what I think it means, on and on. God, I love this woman.

"No, you're voluptuous" my hands slide down her back and over her ass. I press my forehead into hers.

"Luka . . .. " I start nibbling her ear. "Okay, give me the car keys."

"What?"

"Give me the keys"

I hand her the keys and she walks over, unlocks the car and opens not the front but the rear door.

"What are you doing?" I'm not sure what she's up to here.

"You're worried things are getting dull, this won't be dull."

"You've got to be kidding." Even I think the mechanics of this will be daunting.

"No one's around." Her eyes are dancing mischievously. She's right, the little parking lot behind the restaurant is deserted.

"We'll never fit." I shake my head, grinning.

She cocks her head to one side and considers me. "We'll see."

"You're serious?"

"Were you?" She tilts her head and grins back.

I nod, laughing.


"You better get in first and you better be good." She says and gestures me into the car.

I do and I am. Although I'm not sure we've ever laughed harder. Maybe Volvos aren't so bad after all.

**************************************************

So, it's one step forward, ten steps back. Because when I wake up on that day, the anniversary of the day they died, I feel so alone. I roll over and watch Abby sleep for awhile, then I get up and go outside and look at the trees. They seem barren in the cold winter morning. I know where I want to go, somewhere I haven't been in years. But today, that's where I know I need to be. And I need to go there alone.

When I come in, she's awake in the kitchen getting the breakfast she now eats.

"Hey" I say and I kiss her lightly on the lips. "I've got to do something. I'll be back in a couple of hours" Tell her, tell her where you're going. I don't.

"Okay" she says pouring some orange juice.

Just as I'm at the doorway she says "Tell her I said hi."

I go cold. "Who?" My voice cracks.

"Your mistress of course." She doesn't turn to look at me, she doesn't see my face, which is a good thing, or she would think it wasn't a joke.

"Yeah" I say and I leave, I can almost feel her turn around and watch me go.

I enter the large doors and bless myself with ice cold water. I genuflect and find a place near the back. I purposefully avoid a Croatian church. I don't want to be with others who remember the siege because that's not what I'm mourning, not today. I'm here because for the first time, I really can hardly see them. Vague flashes but not like before. I can't conjure them up. And I don't know what it means. Funny, I can see my mother so clearly right now.

The music starts. I always loved the music. My mother took me to church twice a week when I was a boy. I haven't been to mass in years, not since they died. And here I am today. I'm not sure why I wanted to come today. I suppose because I don't feel angry anymore. I feel . . .. empty.

The priest begins mass, I almost can't believe my ears. He has an accent, an accent like mine. I think it's a sign, but a sign of what I don't know. Just when I think there's no "master plan" life throws me something, however small, that makes me wonder all over again.

The prayers, the kneeling, Communion it's all as I remembered. Somehow I think its all more beautiful in Croatian, but still there's a reverence here, something timeless that feels right on a day like today.

After mass I sit, I don't know what I'm waiting for, or maybe I do. The priest comes out and begins tidying, but glances at me now and then, and finally he makes his way over to me.

"Good morning" he says and I decide to take a chance and answer in Croatian.

"Good morning", he nods and sits and we chat for a few minutes. He's from Zagreb; he left before the war. He asks what he can do for me. I begin to talk slowly at first and then more steadily. I tell him about Dani, and the children, my loss of faith. I tell him about Abby and the baby. I tell him how many times I've thought I've worked it all through and about my breakdown and my fears about the birth. And finally I tell him that I can't see them, today of all days I can't see them anymore.

"What does that mean? Is it over? I've thought so many times that I was done, had moved beyond it, and then something . . .happens. I don't know anymore,"

"Luka, I'm a man of faith. I believe that Danijela, Jasna and Marko are in a far better place then you and I. They haven't needed you for years. It is you who has needed them. Maybe . . . .maybe you don't need them anymore."

I nod and he goes on.

"Grief like yours that is a process, not an event, maybe saying good-bye has been a process too. Finally letting them go doesn't diminish what you had with them, but maybe hanging onto them, onto the grief. I think . . . I think maybe it's diminishing what you can have now, with your wife, with your baby. I think you don't want that"

I nod again and the words come out staccato "I want it to be over." Those are the hardest words I think I've ever said.

"Then let's say goodbye one last time together hmm?"


"Yes"

"I'll be back in a moment."

When he returns he's wearing his vestments, he puts three candles on the altar and prepares the incense and together we say the prayers for the dead in Croatian. When we're done he nods at the candles.

"Shall I or would you like to do it?"

"I'll do it." I stand for a moment and then one by one I blow them out. It feels like I'm calling the longest and most painful code of my life.

I bend my head expecting the waves of sorrow, but they don't come instead I just feel .. . peaceful. And then a longing comes over me so strong, I can't bear it.

"Luka would you like to stay and have lunch with me" he rests his hand on my shoulder.

"No, I have to - I have to see her."

"Luka?" There's concern in his voice and I look up to see it etched on his face as well.

"My wife, I have to see my wife, I have to see Abby."

He smiles and nods. "Go home to your family Luka."

I take his hand and shake it " Thank you Father." He waves his other hand to dismiss me.

I turn and almost run down the aisle. Before I get to the door he calls out to me in English, "I do a mean Baptism"

I turn and nod and grin. "We'll think about it"

As I drive home I realize my life in the present finally means as much to me as the life I had then. Dani and I, we never really got to the hard part of marriage. We were so young and uncomplicated. Between the kids, medical school, the war, life never gave us much space to worry about who we were becoming either as individuals or a couple. We really just lived. I know that someday we would have had to start the hard work. I know we could have done it. But the thing is, Abby and I, we've been doing the hard work since day one. My life with her is more real to me then anything else I've ever known or done. She wasn't wrong this morning, in some ways I've let my past, my grief, be my mistress. Not telling Abby things because I didn't want to hurt her or burden her. I'm beginning to see what a mistake that was. Maybe I need to tell her what I never thought I would. If she doesn't know where I was, how can she ever appreciate where I am, where we are?

I get home and come up behind her and wrap my arms around her. I rest my hands on her belly. She feels so good, she smells so good, I drink her in. She knows I've been at church from the scent of incense clinging to me. I tell her I can't see their faces anymore even though when I first woke up this morning I thought it would be easy to see them.

"I'm sorry" she says and I know she is.

"Don't be. I'm not."

"No?"

"No." I need to tell her just how right she was that night when she accused me of being married to a ghost. Because now I understand that not saying it, pretending it wasn't true, is really the only part of Dani left between us. It's time to put the last of it away.

"When we were together before . . .I . . sometimes, when I looked at you . . I saw her."

"You couldn't see me?" Her voice is a little pinched but steady.

"No, no I saw you. I think it was because — " I can't do it.

"Go on."

I take a breath and plunge in "I think it was because I knew, I mean somewhere inside of me I knew, that you couldn't see me. I needed to see someone who saw me" There's a sharp intake of breath.

"You see me now?"

"Always." I hold her tighter, it's the truth. "Always."

"I wish — "

"Don't wish. Don't wish." I've wasted too much time wishing already.

"OK. No wishing. Just . . . doing."

I'm quiet for a long time before I say "Yes."

I take her hand and pull her down into the big chair in our living room so she's sitting on my lap. And I tell her about the mass, the priest and the candles, all of it.

"I don't need them anymore. I need you. I need us." I bury my face in her neck. And then the tears come, I feel them cool and damp on my cheek.

"Don't cry Abby, don't cry."