Holding Hands by Judith Arnold Read Free Book Online Page B

For that brief moment
they were a single living, throbbing force, joined so completely
Meredith could not imagine them ever separating back into two
distinct people. But the moment passed and their bodies relaxed.
Their heartbeats slowed. They breathed.
    Scott rolled onto his back beside her, one
arm looped around her. He stared at the ceiling. She did, too. A
quaint brass chandelier, the bulb holders shaped like daffodil
blossoms, hung above the bed. She hadn’t noticed that before.
    Once again she waited for him to speak. He
didn’t, so she broke the silence. “I guess you liked the
teddy.”
    “ That thing?” He gestured
toward a tangled mound of sheets near the foot of the bed. “Yeah, I
liked it. Maybe you can model it for me later.”
    She laughed softly, but her anxieties were
returning, nipping at the outer edges of her soul, threatening to
devour her. “Scott. I tried so hard to lose weight so I’d look good
for you. And you never even noticed.”
    He rose slightly, propped on one elbow, and
peered down at her. “Of course I noticed.”
    “ You never said
anything.”
    “ I never said anything when
you gained weight, either.”
    That was true. He’d never criticized her,
never nagged her, never pointed out the difference between the
slender young woman he’d married and the chubby wife he’d wound up
with.
    But he’d also grown distant over the years,
less attentive. He hadn’t complimented her. He hadn’t swooped her
off her feet the way he had just minutes ago. He hadn’t been wild
with passion for her.
    “ Maybe you should have said
something,” she murmured. “If you no longer found me
attractive...”
    “ Why do you think that? I
mean, yes, you look better now than you did then. But you’re my
wife. We’ve been married twenty-five years. It’s not as if I see you. Wait, that didn’t
sound right,” he conceded when she flinched. “What I mean is, when
you’re with someone a long time, you don’t do an objective
assessment of their physical appearance every time they enter a
room. What you see when you look at them is how you feel about
them, not whether they’re wearing a red shirt or mismatched socks,
or...or that thing.” He gestured toward the mound of linens again.
“What’s it called again?”
    “ A teddy.” She wasn’t
mollified, though. When she looked at Scott, she saw him. His dark,
soulful eyes. His thin lips. The faint scar above his left eyebrow,
a souvenir from a bicycle accident when he’d been a child, in the
days before bike helmets were common. He’d hit a pothole and gone
flying, and he’d landed on a stick that had sliced into his
forehead, requiring a few stitches. Fortunately it hadn’t been
worse. But she saw that scar. Even after twenty-seven years of
togetherness, twenty-five of those years as husband and wife, she
saw it.
    And he didn’t see her—at least, not unless
she was wearing something tantalizing from Victoria’s Secret.
    “ Anyway, what was I going to
say? ‘You’re looking fat, honey’? You knew how you looked. You
didn’t need me to tell you.”
    “ I need you to see me,” she said quietly,
her gaze resting on the light fixture above them, the petals of
glass. “I need to know I matter to you. We hardly ever even touch
anymore, let alone make love.”
    This time he was the one to flinch, and his
voice was edged in anger when he responded. “Is that what this is
about? Sure, it would be nice to have sex more often. But we get
home from work, and we eat dinner, and then you’re on the phone
with your mother. And then you’re on the phone with Emily. And then
you’re off walking the dog. I suppose I should be grateful the boys
don’t call you every day, too.”
    “ My mother and Emily like to
talk to me,” she said, wishing she didn’t sound so defensive. “And
they like to listen to me, too. They ask me for my opinions, my advice. They ask
how I’m doing.”
    “ And what do you tell them?
Do you say you’re doing fine