She was silent a moment, and then she said, “I think those are just the symptoms, don’t you?”
I started to say something, then stopped. I listened to the waves and felt their motion inside me, the coming in and going away again, the certainty and the effortlessness of it. I felt the wind on my cheek and said, “Tell me. I’m listening. I want to know.”
“Then,” she said, after taking a breath that I could tell was for courage, “it’s this. I left because I was so confused, but now, I think I left because I was losing myself. As soon as I said I’d marry you, especially as soon as Karen and I moved in with you, it seemed like you had to control everything. Or maybe it was as soon as you got back to work, back to the way you normally run things. You wanted to say not just where I worked, but who I saw, where I went, even what I knew and what I heard. I knew it must be because you were afraid, but I couldn’t see how to fight that or how to reassure you enough. You’re so strong, and even if I could have held my own—I grew up with fighting. I hate it, and I’m no good at it. I don’t want to live that way. I want to have peace, but if the only way to have that is for me to do everything you say, that’s not peace at all. That’s powerlessness, and it’s ownership. I can’t be powerless, and I can’t let myself be owned. Love can’t mean giving up myself, like I’m not allowed to be a separate person. That’s a choice I can’t make. I’m no Cinderella. I can’t be. I know what happens to her.”
She stopped as if she were out of breath, as well she might be. I said, “And I’m no prince, I reckon,” and earned a startled laugh from her. “Did I really do all that?”
Now she was the one hesitating, then going on. And she’d been wrong. She had courage and strength to burn. “Don’t you think you did? And whether you see it or not—maybe you could think about where that might come from.”
I forced myself to confront it. You didn’t solve a problem by running away. You solved it by seeing it, learning the ins and outs of it, and then attacking it. I thought about the swim lessons, the news about my marriage, the article in the Journal, and the job interviews I’d known would come to nothing. About all the ways I’d let Hope down.
“Could be I did what I always do,” I finally said. “I focused, and I got the job done. And when things got hard, I got myself under control, and then I controlled everything else I could. This time, maybe that included you. Could be I don’t know how to do this. How to be in a . . .”
“A relationship,” she said. “Just like I don’t. The only one I’ve been in—my only long-term relationship—is with Karen. I had lousy models at home, I don’t know how to do it as equals, as real partners, and neither do you. But we have to learn.” She turned to face me. The wind was blowing her hair across her face, and she put up a hand to shove it back and said, “I want to tell you something, and I want you to try to hear it. The only way you’ll lose me is if you shut me out and push me away. I don’t want to go. It killed me to leave. But I couldn’t get your attention. I couldn’t get through, or I didn’t try hard enough, and I was out of ideas. I felt myself being swallowed up in you, and then the baby thing came along and made it worse, and I panicked.”
“Because I didn’t do this,” I guessed. “I didn’t take you on a walk, I didn’t take you to Paris, and I didn’t send you flowers. I thought I was done. I thought the courting was over, and I could go back to . . . normal. Back to work.”
“That’s not what matters,” she said. “It isn’t about sending flowers, even though I love getting them. I knew you loved me. I still know it. But I needed more . . . you. I felt like a doll. I felt myself acting like a doll. I want you to hold me, but I want to hold you, too. I want to feel like part of your life, and I need to know you need me.”
I laughed, and she stiffened. “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t need you much, no. Only as much as I need air, maybe. Only as much as I need to breathe.”
Her eyes were so intent, her heart so open, and she was twisting my own heart, finding my most vulnerable spots. It was terrifying. “Really?” she asked. “Because I didn’t feel that way.”
“Maybe it scared me to show it.” There. I’d done it. It was out there. “I don’t do weakness, and I don’t do fear. I can’t afford to.”
She’d stopped walking. She had her hands on my forearms as if she needed to touch me, needed to hold me. Maybe for strength, or maybe to give it to me. Maybe so.
“Last night,” she said. “When you were willing just to lie with me and hold me and keep me warm. That night in San Francisco, a long time ago, when we’d almost broken up, and you did the same thing. You did it then for the same reason you did it last night. You did it because you loved me, even though you didn’t know it then. When I’m in your arms, I feel safe. I feel your love surrounding me. But can’t you see, Hemi . . . I don’t need to feel safe every minute. I don’t need to be in the circle of your protection all the time. I know it’s there, and that’s enough. I need to be in the world as me, and to know you’re proud of me for doing that, just like I’m so proud of you. After that, I need you to come back to when I need to rest, and I want to be that for you, too. I want to be your resting place. I want to be your safe spot, where you can open your heart and know you’re loved for exactly who you are. How can needing somebody like that be weak, if we’re giving it to each other? How can that not be strength?”
I could hardly breathe. I could hardly speak. “You are that,” I finally said. “You’re my prize.” She started back, and I said urgently, “Wait. You’re my . . . I don’t know. What you said. My shelter, maybe. I’m out in the storm, and then I come back to you. Like a sailor. Or a Maori.”
“That’s beautiful,” she said. “And I love to hear it. But if you have to be under control all the time, if you’re controlling me, how can I see you? How can I help you? Especially if the only time you show yourself to me is in bed?”
I didn’t answer, and she hurried on. “I hear myself saying all this, and I cringe. I feel like all I’m doing is complaining, when you’ve given me so much, and that’s part of the problem. I don’t want to nag, and I don’t want to fight. And I love having sex with you. I want to have it almost every night, and I love that you want me so much. But I want to know you better than that, and I want you to know me. I want you to love me not just for my weakness, not just because you can take care of me, but for my strength, too. I want you to see that I’m not so different from you. I need to get somewhere, the same way you’ve always burned to. I want you to love the fighter in me, just like I love the fighter in you.”
“If I didn’t,” I said, “I wouldn’t love you much right now. You say you don’t know how to fight. You’re making a pretty good fist of it all the same.”
“I don’t think this is fighting,” she said. “This is discussing. This is sharing. This is risking it all, saying it’s too important to give up. This is what I need. You listening to me, and you talking to me.”