"Well she just cuts right to the chase doesn't she?" Barbara says with a slight chuckle.

"Yeah, I guess she does." I say

"Is she right... do you still love Arizona." Barbara asks me.

"I thought I was over her you know, but then I got the call that they had been in the accident and my heart stopped. When they wouldn't tell me anything about her condition I kept imagining the worse. The thought of losing her forever ...I couldn't even breath. So yeah I guess I still love her but love is not enough. I didn't leave her because I fell out of love with her."

"Your right love is not the only thing that makes a marriage work but it is the footings to the foundation. " Barbara says.

"What do you mean?" I ask not sure where she is going with this.

"When you build a house they put the footings down first then they build the foundation on those footings. They need each other to support the house, one without the other doesn't work. Love is the footing but you also need trust, respect, forgiveness, acceptance , patience and the ability to listen even when the other person isn't saying anything. "

"Can I ask you something?" I say to Barbara.

"Sure you can ask me anything" she says.

"When we were talking before you kept using present tense when you said Arizona loved me, was that just a slip up or were you trying to tell me something" I ask her.

"Oh you caught that did you...yes she is still in love with you." Barbara tells me.

"How ...how can that be we have been over for 2 years now. She never said anything ...she acted happy that I was dating someone. "

"It's because she loves you that she acted happy for you. All she wants is you to be happy even if that means it's not with her."

"Did she tell you this" I asked

"No, but I know my daughter. Did you know you are the last woman she has been with." Barbara tells me.

"Huh...I have a hard time believing that." I say.

"Why?"

"Because the last time we separated she hopped into bed with the first intern that hit on her."

"Are you talking about that Leah Murphy girl" Barbara says.

"Yeah, she told you about that?"

"I told you we have talked a lot about the things she has done in the last few years."

"Then how can you believe she still loves me if it was so easy to jump in bed with someone else."

"Do you remember when Arizona left for Africa and you were hurting so much you slept with Mark. You wanted to feel anything except for pain, you just wanted to forget she even existed but it didn't work did it because you still loved her. It was similar for her. She was hurting and she just wanted to feel anything except pain."

"She's the one that cheated, she caused that pain."

"Yes she did, but it was also exasperated when she found out you told people she was dead."

"I never told people that" I gasp.

"At the fund raiser April heard you tell people. Arizona found out and in her mind it proved what she had been feeling to be true, that you wished it was her that died instead of Mark." Barbara tells me.

"What...how could she think that. I loved her , I was devastated after the crash and then after she cheated. A guy approached me at the party and starting going on about my loss , he had heard my TED talk and misunderstood then some widow overheard that and it just took on a life of its own. " I explain hoping she would understand.

"But you never corrected them did you?" She asks.

"I never meant it for it to happened but then they where writing checks and all I could think was how much good I could do with all that money, including helping her. I was sick to my stomach by the end of the night."

"But she didn't know that, all she knew at that point was she hurt you and you wished she was dead. Nothing mattered to her anymore. I am not justifying her actions I am just trying to explain to you where her mind was at that time." Barbara says.

"I swear to you I never meant that, I was hurting so bad then and I let things get out of hand. I can't even imagine my world without her in it. ...wait, is that why when we got back together and I wanted to help with her leg she wouldn't let me."

"She didn't want to be a part of a project that was developed from you wishing she was dead. She was happy you were helping so many people but for her it was just a painful reminder of the pain you both had been through"

"So why is she letting me help her now"

"Because she is not the same person she was then. She finally realized how grateful she is to be alive and that you really just wanted to help her. She let go of all the past and is just being grateful for the moments she has."

"Forgiveness " I say.

"Forgiveness...Can I ask you something now?" Barbara says

"Of course "

"When you asked her to move back home after the cheating, you hadn't forgiven her at that point did you?"

"Looking back, no I guess I never did. I thought I had, I thought I trusted her but then things would happen and that fear of not being enough or her leaving me would come boiling to the surface and we would start the cycle all over again. I thought if we loved each other we could work it out,...we only had the footing and not the foundation huh." I say as realization starts to hit me. This is why we failed before.