Note: I wanted to revisit one of my earlier stories, 'Finding Resolution'. This turned out quite different.
stalemate
They don't talk on the flight back from Finland, nor on the drive from Andrews. It's only when they reach the quiet of their bedroom, dusk's shadows pressing in from the fringes, held at bay by the bedside lamp's golden glow, that Elizabeth breaks their silence.
"So, what happens now?" she says.
She's sitting on the bench at the end of their bed—her whole body weary and sagging into the cushion—watching Henry while he strides back and forth between the suitcase he set on the chair in the corner and the chest of drawers by the door, lifting out and putting away unworn clothes.
"After he's released from the hospital, he'll be given a new identity." He tucks a rolled-up t-shirt into the third-from-top drawer, then eases the drawer shut with a gentle thunk. "I don't know the precise terms of the deal, but—"
He's talking about Dmitri.
Of course, he's talking about Dmitri.
"No." She shakes her head. Then stills. Her gaze settles on him again. "I meant with us."
His shoulders tense, and he stops.
A minute could curl itself into the second it takes for him to unfreeze, let go of the drawer and turn to face her.
"You brought him back," he says. His expression is so open, so childlike, it's as if he honestly believes—after all they've been through—it's as simple as that.
"I did…" She holds his gaze; it feels like a weight—one it takes all her effort not to drop. "But that doesn't change what happened. It doesn't erase the last six months."
(Dry-cleaning solvents might be able to lift a red wine stain from linen, but nothing—no deal, no trade, no asset raised from the dead and rescued from the Gulag—can scrub the last six months from their past.
And now, every time she looks at him she's reminded of how he yelled at her, how he told her he's reminded of how he failed—of her betrayal—every time he looks at her.)
Silence spreads through the air, clings to it like frost.
Henry hesitates. That childlike expression fades, years creeping up on him, decade by decade, until he looks ten years older than he really is.
His gaze lowers, no longer able to hold her own, and he kneads the knots of his neck, before eventually wandering over to the bench and slumping onto the seat beside her.
With head bowed, he stares at her hand where it rests, fingers curled into the burnt-orange fabric. The seconds stretch, too elastic for her to count. Then he slides his hand over to cover her hand, lifts his gaze and turns to her.
"We work through it," he says. "Together."
Once, this might have reassured her. Once, this might have been enough to make her believe everything will be all right. But it doesn't, and it isn't. Not now.
"What if we can't?" she says. "What if we don't?"
"We will." He grips her hand. A slight pause before he adds, emphatic, "Because I won't stop trying until we do."
This, she knows, is supposed to reassure her too. But it's a grand statement—sounds more like a line spoken by a romantic lead in a movie than someone in real life. Which isn't to say Henry is acting, that he doesn't normally speak this way—because he does. He often supplies phrases so showy they're practically pre-fitted with quote marks. And she's always loved that about him. But now it reminds her a little too much of the words he said on the phone to her from Islamabad, I'll always show up for you, always—or, more specifically, how within moments of making that promise he broke it, by choosing to stay in Pakistan rather than return to her and the kids on the Chinook sent, along with the order, to evacuate the embassy.
(Another choice no doubt fuelled by what happened—what she did to Dmitri…)
And even if this time he means it; even if he's sincere when he says he won't stop working on their marriage until they fix it, there's no guarantee they will be able to fix it, which would mean the two of them struggling endlessly—never as happy as they once were (and could still be, if only they'd stop fighting the inevitable and accept it)—striving futilely to reach a place that no longer exists, a place where their relationship looks just as it did before.
She doesn't want to admit it, but she hears the words tumbling from her mouth nevertheless.
"Maybe it's best if we call it quits."
He frowns at her. Confusion, first; then, understanding.
His voice is as rough and dry as desert sand when he says, "Is that what you want?"
She stares at her lap, shakes her head. "I want us to be able to look at each other like we did before, to feel how we did before, and if we can't…" She stills. Turns to him again. Pleading. "I don't want us to spend the rest of our lives chasing after something we'll never get back."
He lets that sink in, leaves the two of them suspended in silence for several hour-long seconds. Then his frown dims, and a shadow creeps across the hazel of his eyes.
"Have you already made up your mind?"
"I…" she starts, then stops, her mouth hanging open, as she realises she doesn't know what she was going to say.
It feels like she's stuck at a crossroads, every arrow on the signpost pointing towards something she doesn't want: she doesn't want their marriage to end, she doesn't want to give up on them, she doesn't want them to be bonded by their misery as they trudge on in search of something it would take a time machine for them to get back, but more than any of that—
"I don't want to get hurt," she says.
Not by him. Not again.
And this is what it boils down to: If they're to fix them, she'll need to go all-in, she'll need to let the armour that surrounds her heart fall away and risk being annihilated by him and the lost hope of them. And if she can't… if she keeps that armour in place, if she holds even a tiny piece of herself back, safe from hurt, then no matter how long and hard they work at it, this—they—will never be fixed.
It's a leap of faith.
Once, she would have willingly leapt into the unknown for him. But now…
Every harsh word, every lie, every flash of anger and betrayal in his eyes, it's made her wary and fearful in a way she never thought she'd be with him, and she doesn't know if she has the strength it'll take to allow herself to be vulnerable with him—truly vulnerable with him.
And though letting go will hurt, greater pain lies in her leaping and failing and falling, in him being unable to keep his word and not showing up for her once again; and, after six months of him pushing her away, of him not seeing her pain, of him not believing—not knowing—she would move heaven and earth for him, when it comes to him taking that leap with her—either landing with her on the other side, or together falling—she isn't sure she trusts him.
She voices none of this, just looks to her hand, which rests on the bench, limp beneath his grip.
Yet, still, he must hear it, for he breaks their silence.
"So, what happens now?"