The little things
Strangely it was the little things that seemed to hurt more than the big things. On the surface he and Jean were continuing on as if their whole world had not blown apart from a knock at the door and the Lazarus like reappearance of his wife. Jean continued to cook his meals, see to his patients, answer the phone, care for his home and lend her insightful thoughts to his latest case. He had noticed that on their return to Adelaide that she seemed to take particular care when setting his place at the table and he knew he had not imagined how she lingered near him when she poured him his tea. The giddy sensation of her hand brushing his had not lost any of its thrill for him.
That was why her actual recoil when he went to touch her face had hurt and surprised him so much. He had forgotten for one blissful minute of the ongoing torment that dictated his life at the moment that Jean was no longer his to touch and caress. Strictly speaking he supposed he was no longer hers but he could not admit that to himself, not even for a minute.
In the darkest hours of the night, when again he lay awake hour after hour, the constantly emptying whiskey bottle a testament to his desire to forget, the tiny grim thought surfaced that he wished Mei Lin had never come. He was quick to banish the thought but it returned with alarming regularity as he watched Jean straighten her thin shoulders and put up a distant and professional front. She was not herself and that was his fault.
He saw the looks on her face when anyone mentioned his wife. She even had to read all about it in the local paper. He lived in fear that any day now that Jean would sit him down and tell him that she was going to move to Adelaide permanently, that it was for the best for everyone. She would remind him that he was married and that his wife was his priority. Jean was so damn understanding, so proper. It would never occur to her that he would have given anything to hear her say that she wanted to fight for them, for the hope of a future that had been so cruelly snatched away.
Then Lucien would be reminded about Mei Lin. He certainly wished her no harm and was delighted that she was alive and well. The thought of what she had suffered and endured turned his stomach and if nothing else his sense of obligation to her was a powerful force. He enjoyed spending time with, laughing over little memories of their life together, but that's all they were, memories. He could see no future that involved her in it but how could he possibly tell her that. He knew he should be grateful and when he thought of all those years he spent searching for only to be told that she had died years before and how back then he would have given anything for her to just turn up on his doorstep.
But that was before Jean or more accurately since he realised that he had fallen in love with Jean. It was like some big joke from the universe. He was seconds away from finishing his proposal, so close to securing a happiness that he thought would never be his again. Lucien cursed himself for not proposing sooner instead of dithering around, trying to find the perfect moment, getting the ring just right. If he had proposed then at least it would have signalled the validity and reality of the relationship between Jean and himself. He knew that Mei Lin was aware that there was something between them. He had never attempted to hide it although he hadn't actually spelt it out either but somehow women seemed to sense these things.
If he was being really honest though he knew that the ring on Jean's finger would not have changed Jean's response to the situation. Her sense of propriety and her desire to do the right thing was one of the qualities he loved and hated in equal parts. He thought so highly of how understanding Jean had been and how quickly she has stepped aside but at the same time he was hurt at how easily she dropped all claims to him and their relationship.
It was easier now that Mei Lin had moved out to the hotel. At least with her not in the house he could watch Jean to his heart's content and pretend for even a short period of time that nothing had changed between them and all was as it should be. His eyes would follow her up the stairs to her room, supressing the desire to follow her up there, put his arms around her and give them the comfort they both sorely needed.
One night he thought he had done just that. He felt his footsteps heavy upon the stairs, heard his gentle knocking at the door, the look of surprise on Jean's face but she gave no argument as he kissed her, his breath still heavy with whiskey. And when he opened his eyes and realised that he had been dreaming, his eyes filled with tears at the thought that he may never kiss her again.
He wanted to do right by both women but he had no idea how to go about it or even what the right thing to do was. Lucien wished he was a different person too, the sort of person who could ignore the claims that his wife had of him. He would happily set Mei Lin up in a home with financial support and everything she needed, everything except a husband that is. The strange thing was that sometimes when he was with Mei Lin she seemed almost indifferent to the life that he had lived without her and he wondered if she too felt the awkwardness of their connection, faded away to almost nothing after so many years apart.
Lucien knew what he wanted to do with Jean. He wanted to marry her, to wake up beside her every morning, eat their meals together, sit in the companionable silence that sometimes marked their evenings together. To read the paper, to sit next to her while she knitted or crocheted, tapping her feet unconsciously to the music as it played from the wireless, these were the little things that he really missed and he feared that the lack of those little things in his life were only leading to even greater heartbreak than he was already experiencing.