I take several minutes to collect myself. I make sure my face is no longer flushed before I walk back to the living room. Graham is lying on the couch, watching television. He makes room for me on the couch, pulling me against him. Every now and then, he’ll kiss me or I’ll kiss him and it feels just like it used to. And I pretend that everything is okay. I pretend every other day of the week is just like Sundays at Graham’s parents’ house. It’s like everything else falls away when we’re here, and it’s just me and Graham without a single trace of failure.
After dinner, Graham and I offer to do the dishes. He turns on the radio and we stand at the sink together. I wash and he rinses. He talks about work and I listen. When an Ed Sheeran song starts to play, my hands are covered in soapy suds, but Graham pulls me to him anyway and starts dancing with me. We cling to each other and barely move while we dance—his arms around my waist and mine around his neck. His forehead is pressed to mine and even though I know he’s watching me, I keep my eyes closed and pretend we’re perfect. We dance alone until the song almost comes to an end, but Caroline walks into the kitchen and catches us.
She’s due with her third child in a few weeks. She’s holding a paper plate with one hand and holding her lower back with the other. She rolls her eyes at the sight of us. “I can’t imagine what it must be like when you’re in private if you two are this handsy in public.” She throws the plate in the trash can and heads back toward the living room. “You’re probably that annoyingly perfect couple who has sex twice a day.”
When the door to the kitchen closes, we’re alone and the song is over and Graham is just staring at me. I know his sister’s comment has made him think about my affection. I can tell he wants to ask me why I love his touch so much in public, but recoil from it in private.
He doesn’t say anything about it, though. He hands me a towel to dry my hands. “You ready to go home?”
I nod, but I also feel it start to happen. The nerves building in my stomach. The worry that being so affectionate with him at his mother’s will make him think I want his affection at the house.
It makes me feel like the worst wife in the world. I don’t do this because I don’t love him. But maybe if I could somehow love him better, I wouldn’t do this.
Even knowing how unfair I am to him doesn’t stop me from lying to him on our way home. “I feel like I’m getting a migraine,” I say, pressing my forehead to the passenger window of our car.
When we make it home, Graham tells me to go to bed and get some rest. Five minutes later, he brings me a glass of water and some aspirin. He turns out my lamp and leaves the room and I cry because I hate what I’ve turned this marriage into.
My husband’s heart is my saving grace, but his physical touch has become my enemy.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
Then
I can feel the heat of his body next to me. I like that the sun is up and he’s still here.
I feel Graham move before I open my eyes. His hand finds mine beneath my pillow and he threads our fingers together. “Good morning.”
When I open my eyes, I’m smiling. He lifts his other arm and brushes his thumb across my cheek. “What’d I miss while you were asleep? Did you dream?”
I think that might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. “I had kind of a strange dream. You were in it.”
He perks up, releasing my hand and lifting onto his elbow. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.”
“I had a dream that you showed up here in head-to-toe scuba gear. And you told me to put my scuba gear on because we were going to swim with sharks. I told you I was scared of sharks and you said, ‘But Quinn. These sharks are actually cats!’ And then I said, ‘But I’m scared of the ocean.’ And you said, ‘But Quinn. This ocean is actually a park.’？”
Graham laughs. “What happened next?”
“I put on my scuba gear, of course. But you didn’t take me to an ocean or a park. You took me to meet your mother. And I was so embarrassed and so mad at you because I was wearing a scuba-diving suit at her dinner table.”
Graham falls onto his back with laughter. “Quinn, that is the best dream in the history of dreams.”
His reaction makes me want to tell him every dream I ever have for the rest of my life.
I like that he rolls toward me and looks at me like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine. I want to stay in bed with him all day, but he pulls away and says, “I’m hungry. You got anything to eat?”