Therapy-DIY In A Van

Riley

From halfway across the cafeteria, I can see the blotch on her usual pale complexion and the weakness around her eyes.

She's been off somewhere crying.

For fuck's sake.

I take a deep breath. I'm not exactly angry with her, but I am a bit put out.

She did not go to the track. I don't know exactly where she went, but she didn't go there. When she was more than twenty five minutes late, I finally broke her damn security protocol and called AJ.

She's twenty-five minutes late, she's not answering her phone or texts. I'm not asking you where she is. I'm only asking if you have eyes on her. If she's safe.

He hesitated a long moment before answering. I don't have eyes on her, but she's in a secure location. I know she's safe.

So she couldn't have been at the track. He would have been watching her from some overlook point. She went somewhere else, and from the distracted and nervous way she was acting on the drive to PT, I would bet my reputation that she intentionally misled me.

I certainly don't think it had anything to do with Aidan Mosteller, but I don't understand why she would lie to me. I thought we were bloody well past her sneaking around and acting like a rebellious teenager.

Two possibilities I can think of off the top of my head. She met with Chili and had another big fight.

Or she sought a shoulder to share our sex problems with.

Bridge? Her mother? Or did she seek comfort in her incomprehnsibly boundary-less friendship in Bodie?

Good god, she wouldn't really do that to me, would she? Share our most intimate issues with Bodie?

No. I don't think so.

Well, I suppose I do think so, because I just thought it.

It's not a completely off the wall thought. Many years ago she did tell collude with him to steal my DNA to determine if I had fathered her pregnancy. And he was there—physically, emotionally there—in the terrible moments when she learned she was losing that pregnancy. That was pretty intimate stuff.

It's not inconceivable that she would turn to him with this problem. But I really hope not.

There's only so much a bloke can take.

I watch her coming toward me. She's close enough now that I can see a fire in her eyes beneath the puffiness. Hmmm. Maybe she went another few rounds with Chili, then.

I roll away from the handicapped accessible table and take the straightest path toward her. She closes the distance more quickly. She leans down in front of me so that we are level. I know Row thinks this is some kind of courtesy, but there's something about the way that she does this that chafes.

Of course, in this noisy cafeteria, it's the only way I could probably hear her. Her voice is very low when she says, "I'm so sorry. I lost track of time and that was really inconsiderate of me."

I nod. "It's alright, Row, but the thing is...you don't appear to be alright..."

She looks like she might ball again as she says, "Can we get out of here?"

It takes pretty much everything I have left to wheel myself to the car, but I don't ask Row to give me a push.

Once we are loaded in the van, she turns over the ignition and she sits a long moment, as if she can't collect herself. She's overwrought and wiping away tears again.

"What's the matter? You're rather riling me up this morning, darling." Even I can hear the irritation in my voice.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying sorry and start by telling me where you've been and what's got you so upset."

She twists in her seat to look at me. "I didn't go to the track."

"Yes, I know," I say.

She blinks. "What do you mean you know?"

I know this is going to start an entirely different kind of row, but I'm not going to lie to her about what I did. "After you were significantly late, I called AJ. I didn't ask him where you were, but simply asked if he had eyes on you and could assure me you were ok. He assured me you were safe, but he said he did not in fact have eyes on you. Which means you were somewhere inside, somewhere private where he felt no need to follow you."

She turns around and stares out the front window. She grips the steering wheel. "Are you fucking kidding me? This again."

"You can be angry all you want," I say. "But I won't apologize for being worried about you."

She glares at me in the rearview mirror. She pick up her phone.

When AJ answers she says, "AJ, you work me for, okay? If you ever again give any details, however vague, about my whereabouts to any member of my family or to Riley or any member of his team, you better make sure my life is in danger, or else you will no longer work for me. Got it?"

It's easy to hear his two syllable reply through the phone. "Got it."

She rings off and throws her phone down in the seat.

"Again," I say quietly.

"What?" she says. Her voice is exasperated. She's angry, but I won't stop trying to make her see my point of view.

"If your life is in danger again. It happens to you quite a bit, you know."

She whips around. "Do not make this about what happened with the Irish and Sixmob. That was not my fault. Daemon posed as my replacement security and driver. I thought you hired him."

"It was not your fault. But it didn't drive me out of my mind with fear for you any less, being that you were blameless," I hiss. "I couldn't get to you. You were being held hostage, and I couldn't get to you, do you understand? And then I get a call from New Zealand that you are in being transported to hospital in serious condition from a cocaine overdose and once again, I couldn't get to you. Fourteen hours on a plane, and I couldn't get to you fast enough. And today you weren't where or when you said you would be and couldn't get to you if I wanted to—because you lied to me and because I'm in this fucking chair!" I slap at the wheels. "If you think I am controlling—well remember that at the heart of that is fear. And I am bloody well am terrified of losing you. As much trauma as you may have from your ordeals—I bear my share too, Rowan!"

All the blotch has drained from her fine features. "You almost killed yourself driving drunk! It's the same!"

"I know! You should still be furious about that!"

"I can't be furious, I'm too fucking grateful that you are alive and we are back together! Screaming at each other!"

Bloody hell. She's right. We're not even really back together a day, and we're screaming at each other again.

"Because you lied to me! Intentionally lied!" I yell.

"Okay! Yes!" I did! But I wasn't doing anything I didn't plan to share with you, eventually!" She turns the van off, pulls the keys from the ignition and throws the out the window.

Well, that's good news, I suppose, but it falls a bit flat as I stare at the keys languishing in the lot aisle.

"What the fuck did you do that for?"

"Because we have to sit here and work this out! We can't go home screaming at each other; Linda will be so disappointed in us!" She glares at me a long moment and then turns away from me in the seat.

"Someone's going to run over those, before too long," I say quietly.

"Well, I guess we better work this out quickly," Row mutters back.

A stone cold silence descends.

I take off my glasses, and rub my eyes. When I speak again, my voice is calm. "Rowan, I agree with you. I want very much to work this out."

"Me too," she says hoarsely. "Because this is just a misunderstanding, but it speaks to a deeper problem."

"A trust issue, you mean."

She's picking at the fingers of her left hand. "Yeah. There was a time when you believed in me, and I wanted to share everything with you."

"I still very much believe in you. I believe you are intelligent and capable and extremely talented. I believe you have a gift of song to share that few people posses. I believe you have more strength and more compassion than even when I fell in love with you. I believe you mean this thing you say, that you want to make this work. "

"I do," she whispers.

"I do, too," I agree. "But I don't know how to stop worrying for you. Caring for you. It's part of my love, Rowan. I can try to stop reacting to that worry—stop doing anything to look out for you, I guess-"

She shakes her head wearily.

"No, I don't really blame you for what you did today. It was a small thing—asking AJ to confirm that I was okay." She's still distracted by her hands or nails or something. "My burst of anger about it...it was just an echo. Or like delayed anger or something. From the things you did before, and I let you do. Have Maisy report on me. Track my cars."

"So much of what I did back then was not at all moving us in the direction of forgiveness. I do know that. But some of it was borne from worry. Maisy especially. I just wanted you to have company that was healthy and not likely to drag you into a drug scene. But forcing a companion on you was not the right approach. You should have been here, with your family, even if I was too angry to cohabitate with you. Everything I did then was fear and pain and anger all so entertwined I couldn't see my actions for what they were."

"Toxic, you mean?" she says quietly.

"Emotionally abusive," I admit.

She nods. "I guess what I did was emotionally abusive to you, too."

I shrug. "It was devastating when you confessed your affair. But abuse? I don't know. It wasn't a pattern, was it? Not like what I did to you for more than half a year..."

She looks straight into my eyes now, "I meant before that," she says softly. "Lying to you so much when you were here in LA and I was in New Zealand. Partying behind your back. Dismissing that you were worried about my partying and diet pill problem when I know how difficult drug issues are for you to cope with. Gaslighting you—pretending like I didn't have a problem, implying that you were paranoid. That was a pattern. I did that for longer than six months. Every time I was reckless, you held on tighter, and I felt more resentful, and did something even more irresponsible and then you reacted by trying to take more control. It was a vicious cycle, but we were both responsible for it."

The strangest thing happens as she says this and we really look at each other. I feel for all the frustration she must have felt with me, instead of only recalling the frustration I felt with her.

"We were in a bad pattern. We both made a lot of mistakes. I think maybe...we never put our marriage first," I say. "I loved you. I worried about you. I fought for you. You loved me. You tried to keep me happy when we were together. You tried to hide things you thought would make me unhappy. We focused on each other, but we didn't focus on us. Our marriage. We didn't even know we had to."

Her eyes are wide. "I think that's so true. I never really thought about it like that before, but that really hits me like truth. I don't want to be selfish or selfless anymore, Riley. I want what you said. I want us to come first. I'm happiest, when there's an us that's working right."

I've never heard Row say anything like this, but it's like she said. It resonates.

"Me too, darling." I ignore the ache as I lean forward and pull her hands to my lips. I kiss both her hands, her knuckles. She makes little sounds of happiness as I kiss down her long fingers and kiss her fingertips. That's when I see them.

The bright pink depressions across her left fingers. Unmistakable to me, since I have my own that have now become permanent again. I turn her hand over, rubbing across them.

"Your mouth misled, but your fingers tell me what you were doing this morning..." I kiss them again. "This was nothing to hide from me."

"I promised I would try. But it was...too much pressure to try with you. For the first time."

I search her face. "Why?"

She looks down at her hands. "Because I want you to admire me, not see me fail."

I think about the way she appeared earlier, having cried her eyes out.

Did she fail?

She may think so, but I won't let her.

If she faltered, it matters not.

It will get better.

"Rowan, look at me."

She turns toward me. I don't even feel the discomfort in my back anymore as ease out of the chair onto my knees and fold her right hand in both of mine.

"I can't promise you it will be like before. But if you're ready now—to recover your playing—I can promise you that I will help you improve and adapt. We'll exhaust every avenue. We'll look again at all the treatments and trials. We'll build you a team. We'll get a world class guitar instructor and the best hand therapists to build you a practice regimen. We'll talk with guitar makers about adaptation if needed. Your father's enthusiasm will be nothing compared to my determination to give you what you need. You need only say the word—you and I together can make this better."

She gives me a watery smile and rakes through my hair affectionately.

"You've already thought about this, haven't you?"

"So many times. I was only waiting for you to be ready."

She kisses my head, and slips her phone into my hand.

"This is where I was. Bodie was helping me find out if I'm ready. I am."

An alluringly lighted video of Row with her Gibson and her newly softened sweetness and her beautiful hands, moving so effortlessly beneath her powerfully rich and tender voice.

Singing that goddamn song that I hate and love.

Playing it with a graceful simplicity that makes me weep.

I wipe beneath my glasses. "Darling..."

I can't say more. I'm speechless. It's a very simple arrangement, but she's playing it flawlessly. Confidently. Joyously.

"It felt good," she says. "Not the same, but good enough. Just to make music, any music..."

"It will get better."

"Maybe. With some coaching and a practice regimen, like you said—"

"Why, it's bloody marvelous now. And it will only get better."

I drop her phone with a clatter as the video finishes. I reach for her wrist, pulling her to the floor of the van with me, taking her head in my hands.

"You are so brave, and I am so incredibly proud of you."

I can barely kiss her for the smile that won't leave her lips, but I'm determined, and in moments she's sighing and wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me back the fucking rapture I can't help but deliver to her in this moment. We get utterly lost in her victory.

We're still passionately entwined when a sharp rap on the window makes Row shriek in alarm.

It's Blake, carrying an Eco-food container, and apparently returning from his lunch pick up, giving us a school marm look.

Row's arms are still around my neck. I slowly remove mine from beneath the back of her sweater.

"He looks a little pissed, Riley," she whispers.

He raps again.

"Hmmm. He certainly doesn't seem inclined to go away, does he?"

Row leans over and opens the door.

"Sorry, do you mind?" I grin at him.

"Dude, I do not mind telling you this is why your back hurts, and it's going to keep hurting if you don't listen to me," he says with a furrowed brow but a mouth that's trying hard not to smile. "Wrestling a she-devil is a little above your range of motion right now."

"I already told you all that, Mate," I quip.

"Yeah, and I told you how to...accommodate," he grins. "And it wasn't on your knees in the back of van."

"We were just looking for the keys," Row bites her lip and gives me a sweetly devious smile. "And we got a little distracted."

"Right," I grin back at her.

Blake gives us a skeptical look, but he digs in his pocket, holding out the keys Row threw. "You don't mean these? I found them in the lot..."

"Ah. Look there, darling. You must have dropped them on the way to the van. Thanks ever so much, mate," I snag them from his hand. I brace my arms on Row's shoulders, climbing to a squat and easing up back into my seat. "There," I wink at Blake. "Problem solved."

"Huh," Blake obviously thinks there is more to the story, but he's not going to ask. "Okay, well, be mindful of your motion," he says with a wave and a nod as he closes the van door, shaking his head slightly as he makes his way back into the facility.

As soon as his back is turned, I draw Row into my lap.

"Your back..." she protests against my lips.

"Hurts likes a son of bitch, and only you take my mind off it," I tell her and continue kissing her.

Sunlight through the window warms us as we softly enjoy each other's mouths and touches. Eventually I can't any longer. I just can't. The comfort of us making out is overwhelmed by fatigue. Pain has worn me out. I taper the kiss with soft sucks of her bottom lip. "But I would very much like to hear you play live. Let's go home, shall we?"

When we arrive home, we're unhappily recalled to Row's closet project. Linda has already begun.

"Oh fuck," Row hisses as we watch Linda toting a large basket of Row's unmentionables across the split level. "I forgot."

I rise slowly from my chair, reaching for the walker I use in the house. "Tell you what. I could use a rest. Why don't keep your intended afternoon plans, and then we'll have a romantic evening. I rather like the idea of anticipation. I'll think of seeing you play by candlelight while I rest. You can think of a song with which to serenade me," I smile at her.

She walks by my side slowly, into the kitchen. "I was thinking more of a duet instead of serenade..."

I raise my eyebrows. "A duet? What do you want to play?"

She gets an extremely serious look on her face as she says, "Everything. Until we find our perfect balance."