I moved my head this way and that in the mirror, liking the feel of my hair swinging so freely, just skimming my shoulders. The blonde highlights made me grin at myself. All my life, my long, waist-length hair had been mousy, bland brown. Today, when I went in for my typical hair trim, Noel had casually mentioned her appointment after me had canceled. Turning to her, I asked if she wouldn't mind doing a makeover since she had extra time after me.
"I want it to my shoulders and I want blonde highlights," I told her. Such a simple thing, but I'd always kind of let my hair just happen. Now, I was saying what I wanted, no hesitation, no uncertainty, no asking what someone else thought of my ideas.
Grinning at me, Noel clapped her hands together. "So ready to give you a new look!" she'd cheered. Then she'd gotten busy with highlighting and washing and cutting and drying and styling. When she'd finally turned me to face the mirror, I'd smiled huge at the same time tears burned my eyes.
"You're a miracle worker," I'd exclaimed, touching the perfectly styled layers, the highlights adding depth and sheen to lift the mousiness. I felt good.
That was a feeling I'd been working hard to achieve over the last three months, which had been spent at work, in therapy, with Chelle and Stasia, at my new apartment and on long walks that ended up with me sitting by the river with my dog. Since moving out on my own, I'd wanted a dog, and so I'd finally gone to the local pet shelter and looked for a dog that met all of my apartment's breed restrictions and weight limits.
And that is how I ended up with a fawn-colored French bulldog with the ridiculous name of Springy. I was kind of stuck with the name since she was three years old, but I soon realized why she got her name the first time she got excited and began springing up and down. She didn't bark much, if at all, and since I lived close to work, I could run home for lunch and give Spring a short walk.
Keeping with the theme of her somewhat shortened name, I bought her a leaf-green collar with little daisies embroidered on it, and her leash was light pink with tulips on it.
Spring and I had a lot of long talks, mostly because she kept twisting her head this way and that as I spoke to her, as if she was really understanding me, and I thought it was just about the cutest thing I'd ever seen.
I was thinking about my latest session with Monica. Three months ago, I'd asked her a question about whether Quest could have actually blanked out fucking Mary-Lou Dawn. I'd told her what he'd told me about remembering the moments before -- when he had enough presence of mind to pull out a condom and roll it on -- and the moments after, when he pulled out, took off the condom and pumped himself until he came on his hand.
She had said, without talking to him she could only guess. But from what I'd told her, she said people had been known to snap under serious stress and do something so out of character that they repressed certain events, like he'd repressed the actual act of fucking that bitch. Monica also mentioned dissociation and said it's one way a person's mind can deal with an overload of stress and people could blank out an event and have no recollection of it.
When she explained that, I'd nodded, but said nothing. I thought about her words off and on for the next three months, but after that session, after I moved into my own place, I concentrated on me for three months and never mentioned Quest to her in our sessions.
One of the things that had come out in my discussions with Monica was the fact that I no longer wanted to run the bank I was being trained to take over.
"I think," I told her guiltily, "that it was one of those things that I just took the easy road on. I worked at the bank after school and during the summers. It was easy, it was something that I was good at and it just seemed like the path I should take."
I gave her a slight grin and shook my head. "Geez, I'm pathetic."
"We don't talk about ourselves like that," she said immediately. "Tell me what you'd rather be doing."
"Well, I've been researching careers that only require a two-year degree, and the one that sounded really interesting to me was being a physical therapist assistant."
"Do you have a plan?" she asked me.
As a matter of fact, I did. I sketched it out to her, telling her I'd found a program at the local community college two towns over that would allow me to work and go to school. In about five semesters, I'd be a PTA.
"Is your family excited for you?"
"I have no idea," I admitted. "You're the first person I told. I signed up for classes today and I begin next month, after the first of the year."
"And why haven't you told anyone?" she asked me.
Shrugging, I thought about her question. "Because I needed to do this on my own. I didn't want anyone's input or opinions on the matter. They'll probably be concerned that I'm giving up the bank. Maybe think I'm doing this as a reaction to --"
"To?" Monica prompted when I stopped.
"To Quest."
"Are you?"
"No. This is just something that's been bubbling inside me for a long time, but I felt like I had to stay at the bank for Ed, because it was steady work with long-term job security. I never went to college, so I felt like maybe it was the best I could do. And it was fine. Ed was -- is -- a great boss, but I really thought about what my future looked like, and working at the bank just wasn't interesting to me, long term. So I took some personality tests, looked at the matches for my personality type, narrowed down my options and researched them. Being a PTA matched my skills and personality traits and it sounded really interesting."
"Well, good for you. Your face lit up when you were telling me your plans and I think that's a good sign. How's living in the apartment going?"
"Great," I enthused. "It's good, and I like going home to relax, knowing Spring is there waiting for me. Sometimes I meet Chelle and Stasia for dinner and drinks, I stop by mom and dad's every weekend and some other friends and I have started hiking and running local trails for exercise."
"It sounds like you're keeping busy, and when you start school you'll be even busier."
"Busy is good," I assured her. "I'm finding new things I like, I'm on my own and for the first time I really feel like an adult who can handle her shit. I'm taking care of myself with no one's help and succeeding."
"Good for you, Tillie," she said.
"Good for me," I murmured back.
I was on my own, thriving, standing on my own two feet...but I still thought about Quest. All the time. I hadn't seen him in three months, hadn't even seen his truck around town, but he still left flowers on my car, with the notes and ribbons every single day.
So, one Saturday afternoon when Spring and I were relaxing on an old quilt by my favorite spot along the river, I thought for a minute that I'd conjured my husband when I heard a deep voice call my name.
I sat up and turned to face him as Spring ran over to sniff his work boots. He was wearing worn jeans, a white T-shirt and an unbuttoned black and tan flannel shirt. His hair was a bit longer and he looked...delicious, that perfect body moving toward me with purpose.
The serious look on his face as he took me in was so familiar, I ached for the way things used to be between us, for the man who I knew inside and out. For the man who would never have done what he did to me.
He bent over and picked up Spring, who normally didn't like men, but here she was, making whiny little sounds, looking especially tiny against his chest, held by those massive hands of his.
"Your hair looks great," he said, his eyes cataloguing the changes in me the same way I'd assessed him. He nodded toward the blanket. "Mind if I sit for a minute? Got some things to talk with you about."
With my hand, I indicated he could sit. Once he did, he put Spring down and she immediately lay down beside him, belly up so he could have the great honor of rubbing her tummy.
"Who's this little girl?" he asked.
"Spring," I said.
"Cute," he grinned down at her.
He looked out at the river for a minute, then said, "So, just wanted to let you know, I'm going to pay out the remaining three months on the rental house and let the owners know we won't be renewing our lease. I'm staying in the barn apartment at Mom and Dad's, and you have your own apartment, so we don't need the house anymore. I didn't want to do it without letting you know."
We walked up the porch steps of our rental house together, hands held tight, our smiles wide and just as we got to the front door, Quest swept me into his arms, laughing down at my surprised face.
"Gotta carry the bride over the threshold," he said. "And I'll carry you over every threshold we have until the last one, which will be your dream house I build for you."
"You're really going to build me that house, Quest?"
"I promise I'll build it for you someday. But until then, this is a pretty nice start for the two of us."
I shook myself out of the memory of the day Quest and I had moved into our little rental house. We'd been so happy, so sure of our future.
"OK," I said.
"Do you want anything from it?"
I shook my head decisively. "No."
"All right, so if it's OK with you, I'll donate everything inside it to Foster Futures."
I knew the organization. It helped foster children who aged out of the system set up apartments. They were always in need of furniture and household items.
"That's fine. They're a good organization," I said and for some reason I felt like crying. I hadn't cried in three months. I hadn't let myself. But sitting here, discussing the disposal of the items we'd been given as wedding presents or we'd saved for was hitting me hard.
My hand went to scratch Spring behind her ear and I noticed Quest still wore his wedding ring. He saw where my eyes were focused and stopped rubbing Spring's belly and held his hand up to me.
"I'll never take it off, Tillie. You might think it doesn't mean anything because of what I did, but it does."
I didn't say anything to that, and we sat in silence for a minute.
"I haven't heard anything about you opening your restoration business," I said finally.
"That's on hold for a bit," he told me with a tender smile. "Got another project going right now that's taking all my spare time."
"What's that?"
He sighed and looked out at the river again. "I broke a vow I made to you, Tillie. It kills me every day that I did that. But there was another promise I made to you that I can keep. So, I'm keeping it."
The infuriating man didn't say anything else.
"And?" I asked.
"And I don't want to tell you yet."
"Keeping secrets from me is not a wise move," I snapped at him.
He thought about it for another minute. "I'm building you your house," he told me simply.
"Quest, you can't --"
He looked at me. "I can. And I am, Tillie. I got that little half acre plot we liked and I'm building it there."
"Quest, you took out a loan that size without telling me --"
"I didn't," he said. "Paid cash for the land and all the materials. I'm trading restoration and autobody work for different tradesmen to help me build it, but I'm building you your house."
"I don't even know what to say to that. We're not...we might be divorced --"
"Doesn't matter. It's your house, with or without me. I won't break this promise to you, Tillie."
"How did you get the money?" This was so much to take in I could barely think.
His jaw worked for a minute and I knew this was another thing he didn't want to tell me. "I sold my three trucks."
"Quest!"
That was why I hadn't seen his truck around town. He'd sold it, along with his two other trucks.
He had a beautifully restored 1955 F-100. He also had the truck he drove all the time, his 1963 Ford F-100. His third truck, the one it killed me to know he'd sold, was his grandfather's 1956 Ford F-100 custom Shelby Pickup. He and his grandfather had restored it together and it was sheer perfection. They had collectors clamoring for it but would never consider selling it.
Before his grandfather had died, the two of them would go tooling around to various car shows in that iconic truck, loving to talk about the restoration work they'd done on it to fellow truck fanatics and all the years they'd worked on it, all the effort and time to track down original parts. Those trucks could go for $450,000 at auction.
"You worked hard on those trucks -- you loved them --"
"Not like I love you, Tillie. Not even close."
He loved me so much, yet..."Why, then? Why did you ruin us?" I demanded.
"For no good reason." He looked at me, his eyes wrecked. "I didn't plan to come here today to tell you about the house. I wanted to ask you something else."
"What?"
"Would you be willing to give marriage counseling a try?"