Phoenix (36 page)

Anything else seemed disloyal. “I don’t know.”

“You can have more than one reason for being here. You dragged yourself across an entire continent for her but you’re allowed to acknowledge that what you’re doing is bigger than your relationship with your wife. Much of what you’ve done and will continue to do has been incredibly noble.”

Jack snorted. “I’m not noble. Not when it comes to this, not when it comes to her.”

“What do you mean?”

May as well damn all the torpedoes at once. Maximize the hour. “I misled Caroline about my past. About how I treated all the women I’d slept with.”

“In what sense?”

It was much easier to tell Natalie than to share the truth with Caroline. “I glossed over some of the rotten things I’ve done. She unwittingly lied for me during the campaign for governor. Someone – I don’t know who, but it was probably my opponent – found this woman I’d dated for a couple of months, long before I met Caroline. Got her to hold a press conference where she accused me of some pretty ungallant things. I convinced my wife that none of it was true.”

“And it was?”

“Almost all of it.” He shook his head. How had he ever deserved her trust? “She went to bat for me so many times during that gubernatorial race. She would stand in front of the media repeatedly proclaiming my innocence and defending my honor and never once did I correct her. How could I do that to her integrity?  To her sense of decency?”

“She believed you without question.”

“She did,” Jack said. “She practically killed herself running back and forth across the state that summer, all while serving full time in Congress. She’s the reason I won; I’m convinced of it.”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

Hadn’t Natalie noticed that he preferred to hide his flaws instead of revealing them? “I can’t tell her things that might make her think less of me.”

“She married you without any indecision. Don’t you think that tells you something about what she thinks of you? Don’t you think she knows you’re not perfect?”

“She has no idea how badly I treated some of those women. I made it sound like we were using each other when in reality I was a manipulative cad.”

Natalie tapped one finger against her cheek. “You stopped last night before anything happened.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve never done anything she didn’t want you to do.”

“No.”

“Yet you’ve had these inexplicable dreams.”

“Yes.”

“Would you ever act on them?”

“No,” Jack said. “The bad ones sicken me.”

“Then don’t worry about them.”

After everything he’d told her, that was her response? “Are you sure it’s that easy?”

“We all have dark thoughts. As long as we don’t act on them, we’re fine.”

Dark thoughts, dark behaviors, dark desires. Did any of it matter when his past would forever haunt him? “I
am
a sexual predator, aren’t I? Christine was right.”

“If that’s what you’ve been worried about, you need to get it out of your head.”

“How else do you explain the dreams?”

“If you were a predator you would have acted on it a long time ago, and it would have caught up with you. Christine said that to hurt you and you’re insecure enough to internalize it and give it a life of its own. So let that go. I want you to think for a minute. What’s really upsetting you about your relationship with Caroline?”

How could he pick just one thing? “She won’t talk to me. Not for any length of time and not about anything substantive.”

“Why do you think she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

He’d never told Natalie the whole truth about that night in the forest. But she knew enough. “Caroline blames me for what happened when we got separated.”

“You don’t know that. Why haven’t you talked to her about it?”

I fucking tried and she won’t let me.
“I’m so ashamed of myself. I can’t even say it out loud.”

“Have you talked to her about it in the dreams you’ve been having?”

“I’ve never gotten the chance. She implies that I must not truly love her, then she’s gone and I wake up before I get the chance to explain.”

“She’s never said anything like that to you in reality, has she?”

Not yet.
“No.”

“What else does she talk about in the dreams?”

This was easily the most embarrassing conversation they’d ever had. “Most of the time we aren’t talking that much.”

Natalie stifled a grin. “I see. Maybe you
are
some gangly adolescent boy.”

He ignored her comment. “I can’t talk about it in the dreams. What does that say about me when I can’t even have a healthy emotional bond with her inside my head?”

“It says you’re working through a lot of painful issues. What else does she say to you in these dreams?”

Jack rubbed his eyes. “She’s asking why I hurt her. Asking why I’m treating her so badly. But the worst part is when she says she loves me. I’d give anything for her to tell me that in real life.”

“You think that won’t happen again?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you feel about the way the two of you were separated?”

Natalie was trying to trick him into giving her something else. “I feel like it’s my fault.”

She stared him down. “I’ve seen you working the bag at the gym when we’re there at the same time. Pounding the hell out of it. You’re taking a lot of energy out on that inanimate object. I’m surprised you haven’t knocked it off its chain.”

Aside from going on long runs, destroying the heavy bag was his favorite activity. “I’m building stamina.”

“Bullshit. What are you thinking about when you’re hitting it?”

“Nothing.”

Natalie sighed. “You and your wife are infuriating. You internalize just about every goddamn thing you hear, no matter how meaningless.”

Did she lecture Caroline the way she lectured him? It seemed that way. “You can imagine what our relationship was like.”

“Come on, Jack. Tell me what you see.”

He stared down at his hands. Of course she wouldn’t let it go. “I see myself.”

“In your dreams, do you ever hurt yourself?”

He thought about hurting himself all the time when he was awake. But he wasn’t about to volunteer a response to an unasked question. Some truths had to stay hidden. “No.”

“Does Caroline ever hurt you?”

“Sometimes. With words.”

“That’s not what I mean. Does she use violence?”

“No. Never.”

“Do you want to hear my totally unqualified, absolutely unscientific analysis of your dreams?” Natalie asked.

He knew he didn’t have much choice. “Go ahead, I guess.”

“You’re projecting your anger at yourself onto your wife.”

“Excuse me?”

“You want to hurt yourself so you’re hurting her.”

He could play that off. Rather well. “That makes no sense.”

“It’s inside your head, Jack. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Nothing made sense, whether it was in his mind or not. “Why doesn’t she fight back in the dreams?”

“Because you don’t want her to. You want her to acquiesce and most of the time she does.” Natalie chewed on the end of her pen. “You’re projecting your fears onto her. You’re mad she won’t talk to you, but in your dreams you can coerce her into doing what you want. And that scares you.”

“I would never hurt her.”

“You’re afraid you might.”

Dammit, she hadn’t even bothered framing that as a question. And she was right. Who knew how much damage he’d already caused? “It would be so easy I might not even realize what I’d done until after the fact.”

“She’s stronger than you think.”

“That doesn’t mean she can’t be hurt. And I’m the only one…I mean…”

“You have to tread lightly, but not as lightly as you think. You’re frustrated because she won’t give you the answers you want. She doesn’t react to you in the way you desire. And you think you might push her too far. You won’t. Trust me. But in your subconscious, it doesn’t matter, which means that, well-” Natalie blushed.

Thank God she hadn’t verbalized the rest of that sentence. “I miss touching her,” Jack said. “Holding her. I miss being with her. Talking and laughing and…the unspoken comfort we would give one another. I’m not going to lie about missing the physical aspect of our relationship. But I’d never hurt her sexually, Natalie. Ever.”

“I know.”

Her reassurances didn’t lessen his guilt. “What do I do about it? I can’t control it.”

“That doesn’t matter. You can control your conscious behavior. Focus on that. The rest will take care of itself.”

“How can I mend things with Caroline when she won’t talk to me?”

Natalie pondered her answer for a moment. “She
is
talking to you, Jack. On her own terms. Not as this idealized vision you have floating around in your head, where she says what you want to hear and does what you want her to do. You have to take her as she is and recognize that you have your own issues as well.” She held up a finger before Jack could cut her off. “This is a process. It might take longer than you want. And it might not end with the desired result.”

“What about the dreams?”

“Forget about the dreams. You feel bad about them.”

Jack coughed. “They…aroused me. Except for the one last night.”

“That’s not unusual,” Natalie said. “A lot of people fantasize about things they’d never actually do. And you have never forced yourself on Caroline.”

God help him if that ever happened. “No. I never have.”

“You walked away last night.”

“I did. But then I had a dream that I didn’t.”

“Do you plan on acting on it?”

“Hell no. But I don’t think teasing her was fair, either.” Jack rubbed his eyes. “She’s so afraid to let anyone in, and I could have made it worse. If I’d done anything I would have broken her. She’s not ready to be that close to me. Not yet. Why did I even think that was appropriate? I hate what I did and I’m afraid I might do it again. I’ve already done it twice.”

“You love her. You had a very profound relationship. I highly doubt that’s going to happen again. No matter what you’ve been dreaming about.”

That didn’t stop him from worrying about it. All the damn time. “It might.”

“It won’t,” she said firmly. “You miss her. And she misses you too, even though you believe otherwise. Did you see the look on her face after you told her what Christine said?”

A momentary burst of hope had filled him when it had happened. But it had long since passed. “She’s pissed as hell at me.”

“Maybe. But she loves you too. You have to know that.”

Natalie often gave him remarkable insight but that theory was off the wall. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not kidding. She doesn’t want to admit her feelings. That’s why she ran out of here yesterday.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about her,” Jack said. “About us.”

“You think I’m wrong?”

“I see nothing but contempt when she looks at me.”

“You’re not looking hard enough.”

“Maybe she masks it better when other people are in the room.”

“You’ve described a woman who was completely devoted to you and gave you everything she had. I can’t imagine that Caroline has morphed into the kind of person who could forget all of that. Despite her struggles right now.”

Dr. Haddad was young. Idealistic. She didn’t understand. “I shattered my wife’s trust in me.”

“Human beings have a tremendous capacity for forgiveness.”

“Not always.”

“You’re being cynical. You don’t want to admit that your faith is slipping.”

Every day that passed, it slipped further. “I’m getting a bit frustrated, yes.”

“But you said you thought she felt something, right? When she looked at you during our session?”

Pity, anger, remorse, regret. He didn’t know what he saw or what she felt. “Feeling sorry for me and loving me are two very different things.”

Natalie sighed. “The two of you are so ridiculous sometimes. Didn’t you notice how she reacted? When she grabbed your hand?”

“She had a temporary lapse. It didn’t mean anything.”

She gave Jack a hard look. “Maybe not, but it’s all you’ve got to hold onto so I suggest you take it.”

He stared down at the floor. If he kept eye contact with Natalie he’d end up spilling more than he wanted to. “You were right,” he said quietly. “We should have done this when she first got here. Therapy for both of us, separately and together.”

“We have to deal with where she’s at today, not six months ago.”

At least she was gracious enough not to rub his nose in it. “I can’t help it, Natalie. I find myself pushing her harder than she wants. Harder than I wanted to. I don’t want her to completely fall apart.”