Wednesday 8th May 2019, early evening

Veronica and I had spent a wonderful day together. We had breakfast and took a very happy Haley to school, then returned to her condo and made love for the rest of the morning. We just about found the energy and self-control to drag ourselves out of bed and head to a local restaurant for a light lunch, followed by a walk in the park before it was time to collect Haley and head home.

A perfectly lovely late afternoon and early evening had ended with Haley kissing her mum goodnight as she settled down to listen to the bedtime story – The Princess and the Pea.

I was about half-way through when there was a loud rapping on Veronica’s front door, the violence and volume immediately causing me to tell Haley to stay put while I raced out to see what it was all about.

Entering the lounge, I saw an agitated and irate looking Callan standing inside the front door. “There you are! Have you got anything to do with this? Did you put her up to this?” He half-shouted in an accusing voice as Veronica ushered her worried-looking daughter from the hallway and back to bed.

I was totally confused and perplexed. The first thing I thought about was V and Haley and said “Get out! I will not have you shouting in here where there is a woman and small child!” Once outside I started my questioning. “Have I got anything to do with what? What am I meant to have done now?”

“Don’t you become the innocent with me, Dave. You’ve got history. You’ve done it before – kept stuff back, stolen her away from me. You couldn’t stand the thought of me having a last few days with her, could you? Frightened she might choose me, the man she loved first, the man whose children she should have had.”

“Callan, what the fuck are you talking about?” I shouted, my voice now matching his.

“You know damn well, don’t pretend. The airport. I was meant to pick her up at the airport at six. I checked, the plane arrived okay, on time. But Jill wasn’t there. No sign of her. None at all. I tried calling, but it’s gone straight to voicemail. I texted, no reply. What the fuck have you done, Dave? What have you done?” he shouted, his face now inches from mine, looking like he was about to lift me up by the lapels in a fit of desperate anger.

“Callan, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Everything you’ve said is news to me, first I’ve heard about it.” My face was now pushing close to his.

The look on Callan’s face slowly started to change – slowly started to look less angry and flammable, and more worried, confused, and hurt.

“What’s she done, Dave?” he asked, the way he looked at me telling me that whatever his paranoid suspicions had been just a few seconds ago, he knew now that I’d had no part in whatever had happened. It was all fresh news to me.

“Callan, I honestly don’t know,” my tone now calm as I brought him back into the house and got him to sit down, both for his own benefit and to keep things calm with a child in the house.

“Look, Callan, I’m sure there’s a perfectly simple explanation. Maybe she missed the plane, or maybe she stayed an extra few hours to see John, Becky, and Julia, you know how women are with new babies.”

His face relaxed at this last suggestion, recognizing something all men knew to be true.

“Look, Callan. Let me make a call and find out what’s happened.”

Callan just nodded, calmer than he’d been, but still nervous as to why Jill wasn’t back in Miami as she’d promised.

I retrieved my phone from the dining table and pressed the speed dial for Jill. It took some time but she picked up after the fifth or sixth ring.

“Hey babe,” even now after all these years I smiled to myself whenever I heard her voice.

“Hi, sweetheart. I’ve got Callan here, and he’s confused. He says he was expecting to pick you up at the airport an hour and a half ago.”

“Dave, are you on speaker?”

“No, why?”

“Good, I suggest you find somewhere away from Callan so I can explain.”

“Okay, give me a minute… Okay, I’m in the bedroom now, door closed.”

“Sorry to do this to you, honey, but I was hoping you could help me out of a spot here.”

Jill just heard nothing except my nervous silence, my heart pounding, located somewhere between my chest and my throat, wondering what Jill was about to tell me and ask me. None of the plausible guesses my mind generated being anything but bad news for me.

“Sorry, sweetheart. It’s just after everything he’s been through, I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

“Tell him what, Jill?” I had to know, my voice scratchy and taut with tension.

“Tell him that I’ve changed my mind. That I want to spend the last five days of my hall pass with Malcolm, not with him.”

Again, there was a long silence between us, as my pulse returned from double over boost to just plain old stressed. As I realized that although this was bad news for Callan, it didn’t really hurt me.

I think I must have sighed subconsciously, which seemed to spark Jill to speak. “So, honey, will you apologize and tell him? Please?”

I took my time, thinking long and hard about it, before coming up with something I was happy with.

“How’s about this? We split the job. I’ll tell him now, so that he knows. And then you promise to talk to him in person tomorrow when he’s gotten used to the idea. Does that work for you?”

It was Jill’s turn now to invoke the long pause as she thought, before finally answering. “Okay, that seems fair. Tell him I’ll call him at eight tomorrow morning. Love you, honey, thanks for doing this for me, we really appreciate it.”

And then the line went dead. No ‘love you’, not even a ‘goodbye.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Telling Callan was hard – really hard. He took the news as you’d expect. Not just because it denied him the pleasure of being with Jill for the next five days. But more significantly because in one fell swoop it unexpectedly extinguished any fleeting hopes he’d had of maintaining a long-term relationship with Jill.

I had no illusions about this – just like Malcolm, I’m sure he would have spent much of his five days with Jill trying to get her from me, to persuade her to change her mind. To kick me into the long grass, cancel the move to L.A. and build a new life with him in Miami.

But now this plan and this hope for him was burned away as if it had never existed.

I thought he might blame me and braced myself for a further onslaught, but his temper and anger took a different form. His own frustrations and heartbreak turned into pity and sympathy for me. As he invoked a sense of brotherhood with me that took me by surprise but that soon had my heart back in my throat on the edge of cardiac arrest.

“You know, Dave. You and me have a lot in common. She’s just gone and broken my heart, and I wonder how long it will be before she does the same with you? She’s not coming back today. What’s going to be different when she’s due back on Sunday? Maybe I’ll be the one ringing her and relaying the news to you?”

Maybe I’m a stupid fool, or maybe I’d been so caught up in the drama from when he’d arrived and screamed and shouted. But honestly, it was only when Callan asked these questions out loud that my own brain started asking the same questions in the quiet and quaking parts, the inner parts of my mind.

From the look on my face, Callan must have realized that he’d sown a seed that was not there before. But he didn’t look happy or smug as he saw the panicked, worried look appear on my face. If anything, it just made him look a little sadder and more sympathetic.

“Sorry, Dave. I didn’t mean to hurt and worry you. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I’m wrong. After all, she chose you all those years ago. She married you and you have a family together. After all, we’ve only been dating again for a few months, you and she have been together forever. Just because she chose Malcolm over me doesn’t mean she’ll choose Malcolm over you, does it?”

The faster he back-pedaled and created reasons for why Jill would choose me, the more the panic and fear grew in my heart. He could see this and, in the end, he just sat there, silent and looking embarrassed enough for the both of us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t know if Jill did ring Callan the next day – I bore him no ill will, but by Thursday morning the welfare of Callan was the last thing on my mind. The seed of fear that Callan had planted had sprouted, grown, and bloomed into a ten-foot-tall sunflower of fear. Sucking up all the nutrients and energy in my mind and body as I could think of little else.

At first, I didn’t want to talk about it with Veronica. I needed to process and think it through myself first. And then I didn’t want to share it because I didn’t think it fair on her. I’d broken her heart once already, only to be allowed back into her life, even if only for nine days. What kind of a bastard would I have been to lay this heavy burden on her when she’d been nothing but selfless through nearly all of our relationship?

But in the end, a mix of my own need to talk and her only insistence that I share with her whatever it was that was eating me up won through, and I unburdened myself to her.

All through our relationship, one of the qualities I’d always loved about Veronica was her honesty. Given a choice between saving feelings or honesty, she always chose honesty, albeit delivered with gentle love and kindness, and now was another of these times, as she thought about what I was saying and then hugged me. Knowing that I needed physical comforting and reassurance just as much as I needed friendship and a sounding board.

“Honestly, honey, I just don’t know. Some of what Callan said makes sense. Jill loves you very, very much. She’s told you that over and over again, that she’ll never leave you. And she made good on that promise with Chris. All that’s for the good. But you have to know in your heart, there are no guarantees with this kind of thing. Jill obviously has stronger feelings for Malcolm than she realized. That’s why she blew off Callan to spend more time with Malcolm. There’s no hiding from that fact, or the fact that even she didn’t expect to feel that way when the three of them set this whole thing up. So, honey, I hate to say it, but I can see why you’re frightened, but at the same time, don’t go overboard. Don’t let yourself forget all the things Jill has always said about her love for you, and all the ways she’s shown that love for you over the last eighteen months. And don’t forget how deep you and her roots go, and how deeply intertwined they are.”

I looked across at this wonderful woman, tears in my eyes. I was still worried and fearful, but my tears weren’t for that reason. They were because of how much I loved this woman and knew she loved me, and because I was so lucky to have her in my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From that Wednesday until Sunday evening, when Jill was due back, were some of the longest days of my life. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d not had Veronica and Haley to love and distract me.

I thought about calling Jill to discuss my fears, but having talked it through with Veronica I decided against it. As we discussed it, we agreed that whatever reassurances and comforts Jill might have given me, the truth was that she probably didn’t know how she’d actually feel or what she would decide until the day she was due back. How she’d treated poor old Callan was proof positive of this. When she’d left on Friday, I was sure she was fully intending to spend more time with him than she was Malcolm.

Yet by Wednesday morning when her flight was due to take off from L.A., she’d turned fully through a hundred and eighty degrees to the extent that she only wanted time with Malcolm. So, what value would assurances given mid-week have in terms of what Jill would or wouldn’t do by the weekend? She’d failed this test once already.

The other reason I didn’t call was that Veronica had persuaded me that, hard as it might seem, if Jill was on the edge of bolting from our marriage, it was better to know this now rather than later. Better to know where her heart and priorities lay once and for all. As Veronica slowly and lovingly made this point, however painful it was to accept, I could see what she said was true.

So, for those four days, from Wednesday evening until Sunday evening when Jill was due back at Miami International, I tried as best I could to throw myself into the time I had together with Veronica and Haley. Without them, I’d have gone insane with worry. With them, there were moments of love and tenderness, but always against a backdrop of a low-level heartache and aching fear. Until finally the time was over and I set off for the airport to collect Jill.

(Thanks cbears and kite.)