The Family You Choose (30 page)

"Okay."

But neither of them slept. He stroked her
hair, which seemed okay now. "I would do anything for you. Just ask
me."

"Or to me."

He closed his eyes and lay back. "I’m sorry
about last night." He held his breath. "Both parts."

"I didn’t say no."

"I didn’t give you a chance." He exhaled,
willing himself not to make it worse by crying.

"Fine, have it your way, if that makes you
feel better."

"It makes me feel worse."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I hurt you." He was silent.
"Every time I’ve made love to you, you’ve...I could tell you wanted
me. And I knew I was...doing something right." He looked at her
sadly. "Maybe not the first time. The first time you didn’t say
anything. You didn’t even move. I don’t think I could have done
anything to get a reaction from you." He took a deep breath, trying
hard not to cry. "You didn’t even want me to kiss you."

"You hadn’t left a great impression."

"No, I guess I hadn’t."

"And it didn’t stop you. You did what you had
to."

"A different part of your brain takes over, I
guess. You think if you...do enough you might get a reaction."

"I didn’t think you cared."

"What do you think now?"

She rolled onto her back. "I think I want to
know why you followed me the next day."

A part of him had always hoped he’d have the
chance to tell her, but it didn’t seem to matter now. "I was
worried about you. I didn’t know where you would go. I wanted to
make sure that you were okay."

"You sure you didn’t just want to run into
Alex and rub it in his face? I think you want more from him than
you do from me."

"I was looking for you before he was."

"You get a gold star."

"I just want you."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because last night was just like the first
time. You didn’t move, you didn’t touch me. You were just lying
there."

"And you did what you wanted."

He shook. "I’m so sick of...I’m so tired of
not getting it right, or getting it right and then getting it
wrong. God, just turn me in to the police. Forget it—I’ll turn
myself in."

"Do you think that will make you any better?"
Miranda said, still looking at the ceiling. "Do you think you’ll
change if you’re punished?"

"I don’t know. I don’t care. I just don’t
want to hurt you."

Miranda sobbed. He turned and buried his face
in her hair as if he might never feel her next to him again.

"What were you going to say to him?"

"You bastard."

"Please tell me."

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to
remember right before. "I was going to tell him that I loved my
husband. I was going to tell him that I didn’t want to trade you
for a schoolgirl’s crush or playing someone else’s ghost. But it
doesn’t matter now."

"Why doesn’t it matter?" He wasn’t
breathing.

"I thought you’d changed, but you haven’t. It
only takes five seconds in his presence for you to go from the man
who loves me to the boy who couldn’t stop taking things away from
me or just breaking them."

"So now you don’t love me, just like you used
to not love me?"

"I can’t stop loving you." She felt like she
was opening up that hole in her heart again. "It just doesn’t make
me happy anymore."

"He’s trying to take you away from me," he
whispered pleadingly. "And he took everything else away. I...you
don’t know how lonely and desperate I was. Or maybe you do. But
then I got everything I wanted, and it was all...it was better than
I’d remembered. I can’t let him take that away again."

"You didn’t get your money."

"I don’t want the money. I don’t even care
about this stupid, cold house. I want you. You’re everything."

She faced him. "You have me. I’ve given
myself to you in every way. But it’s never good enough for you.
What would it take for you to believe me?"

Tears streamed down his face. "I’m never
going to be good enough for you. How can I believe that you’d want
me or love me the way I am?"

"You have to trust me."

"Why?" He sat up, shaking his head, feeling
like he was going crazy. "Do you really want me? Are you just
afraid of being alone? Because if that’s the case, that’s not a
good reason for you to stay with me, you of all people. You’re
never going to have to be alone. There’s always going to be someone
who’s going to love you."

She sat up. He sighed because she was so
beautiful right then. He touched her face and she didn’t push him
away. She closed her eyes, rubbing her cheek in his hand. "I can’t
prove it any more. I can’t prove I love you or want you or need you
any more than I already have. You’re either going to trust me and
love me too, or you’re not. And if you’re not, then we have to
stop. We have to stop right now, while I still can. Because...it’s
just more and more every day. I can’t stop loving you, even if it
hurts. I never thought I’d envy that in someone, but I do now. If
it’s not going to work, we can’t be together anymore. I’ll still
love you, but maybe someday I’ll be able to forget why and it won’t
hurt so much." She opened her eyes and touched his face. "Please,
please, end this now if you’re not going to trust me. You said
you’d do anything."

He didn’t have a choice. "I can’t lose you,"
he whispered. He kissed her gently, tentatively. "You have to tell
me. You have to tell me that you want me. You have to tell me that
you need me. You have to tell me that you forgive me. You have to
tell me why."

Crying, she took both of his hands in hers
and put them on her face. "I want you because you’re so handsome
you make my heart stop, and I don’t know how I never saw it before.
I want you because you have a beautiful voice and when you sing I
feel like I’m going to dissolve. I love you because you can be so
gentle with me and you make me feel like I’m the only one in the
room. I love you because you’re sweet, and because you know what my
favorite colors are even though I never told you. I love you
because you knew when I had dreams about my mother and you were the
only one who cared. I need you because you’re the only one who ever
took my loneliness away, and it doesn’t matter if other people love
me, you’re the only one who makes me feel like I don’t have to be
alone anymore. And I forgive you because I know that you were alone
too, and no one loved you enough for you to believe that they’ll
love you now."

"No," he said softly, pulling her to him. "I
do believe you." He kissed her and stroked her hair. "Do you
believe that I’m sorry?"

"Yes," she said, resting her head on his
shoulder.

"Then will you let me show you?" She nodded
without saying a word, but grabbed him hungrily. It all felt
natural again—she needed him as much as he needed her.

They finally fell asleep, briefly, at dawn,
reluctant to stop looking at the other. It was only that they were
completely intertwined with each other that gave them the assurance
they both needed to be able to close their eyes.

It was going to be at least two weeks before
Miranda didn’t need to get around on a cane. She insisted on
hobbling out for daily walks now that the weather was getting
warmer, but she reluctantly agreed to wait until the evening so
Michael could come with her. "I can get around by myself, you
know."

"What if you fell?"

"I could call 911."

"Or you could just wait until I’m there so I
could catch you."

"I like mornings better."

"Okay, then how about I quit my job now?"

"Evening walks will be fine."

Having been locked in the house for so long
during the winter, Miranda now wanted to go out as much as
possible. "Take me to a movie," she said on a Saturday morning as
they lay in bed.

Michael groaned. "We saw one last
weekend."

"I want to see a different one."

"I don’t think any of them are worth seeing
right now."

"Yeah, but you don’t like a lot of things, so
you’re a bad judge."

"Can’t we rent something?"

"But then you can’t get the yucky movie
theater popcorn or candy."

"But you don’t eat those anyway."

"Yeah, but it’s nice to know that they’re
there."

"Alright," he sighed, kissing her. "But I get
to pick the movie, and you have to make it up to me when we get
home."

"I don’t have to make up anything," she said
petulantly, "because what I’d really like to do is go out dancing
tonight, and I obviously can’t."

"Dancing?" he smiled, kissing her shoulder.
"Really? Because I thought you said I was a lousy dancer."

"Well, you were at my bat mitzvah."

Michael laughed at the memory. "And how do
you know I wasn’t doing that on purpose?"

"Hmm, that does sound like something you’d do
to get on my nerves. Or you could have just been really
awkward."

"Awkward fifteen-year-old, whoever heard of
that?"

"Right," Miranda said, pinching him a little
bit. "Who happened to get busted twice screwing around with some of
the over-eighteen waitresses."

Michael furrowed his brow. "I did? I don’t
remember."

"That’s because you also got caught three
times with beer."

"That I remember." He rubbed her back. "So
you’d be willing to risk being seen on a dance floor with me after
that? I wouldn’t want to embarrass you or anything."

"Okay, I’ll just go myself when my ankle’s
healed up."

He remembered what she looked like in New
York when he’d caught up to her. "The Hell you will."

~~~

After the movie—which was really bad, but
really funny—they walked to the JP Licks on Newbury Street. Michael
wanted to take a cab, but Miranda insisted on walking. She ordered
a chocolate chip cone, and he ordered a coffee ice cream sundae.
She took a lick of her cone, and he raised his eyebrows. She kicked
him under the table but laughed. "You know," he said, lingering
over his spoonful of ice cream, "we never got to make our own
sundaes at home."

"And now we can’t, because you’re eating one
right now," she shrugged. "Very sad."

"I can fix that." He grabbed her cone, dunked
it into his sundae and then threw both of them in the trash. He
came back ten minutes later with two pints of ice cream and hot
fudge and whipped cream. "Coffee and chocolate chip," he said,
looking into the bag matter-of-factly.

Miranda peered in. "Huh. Yeah, and it’s next
to the hot fudge. Guess we’d better get that home soon so it
doesn’t melt."

Michael kissed his wife. "That is just what I
was thinking."

"Okay, now I’m hungry," Miranda said
breathlessly after she rolled off her husband the next Saturday
morning. "I want a bagel really, really bad."

"You keep going, and I’m going to be really
jealous. You never talk about me that way."

"How do you know what Zainab and I talk about
when you’re not here?"

"Uh huh. And does she have similar things to
say about Richard?"

Miranda dissolved into giggles, and Michael
followed suit. "Okay, nice try," she said after a minute, "but I’m
still hungry. We’re getting bagels, now."

"No, we’re not doing anything like that. You
still have to take it easy on that ankle."

"I will have my bagel," she said as she sat
up.

He sat up too. "Then I’ll get you a bagel,"
he said, kissing her.

She kissed him back. "You don’t know what I
like," she whispered.

"Betcha I do," he whispered back and kissed
her again.

She rubbed her nose on his. "Okay, tell
me."

"You like," he said, "an everything
bagel—"

Another kiss. "Mmm hmm?"

"—With veggie cream cheese." He kissed her
again, lingering a little longer. "And you like to take all the
seeds that fall off and tap them into your cream cheese."

She laughed, kissing him. "I wonder why I
don’t find that creepy anymore?"

"That is possibly the sexiest thing you have
ever said to me."

Thirty minutes later, she was sitting on his
lap in the dining room and they were feeding each other bagels.
When they were done, Miranda put her arms around his neck and
smiled at his cap. "I want you to take me to a Sox game."

Michael raised his eyebrows. "Red Sox? When
did you become a member of Red Sox Nation?"

Miranda giggled. "As of...today." She kissed
the tip of his nose. "I think you look really cute in that Red Sox
cap right now."

"Yeah? Do you know how much I wanted to hear
that when we were kids?"

"I wouldn’t have dared get this close to you
if you had been holding a baseball—or a bat, for that matter."

"What would it have taken?"

"Being nice to me."

"That didn’t look like it got Richard a lot
of action."

"But I think I probably told him how cute he
looked a couple of times."

"Okay," he said, but there were tears in his
eyes.

She stroked his cheek. "Don’t cry. I’m here
now."

"I know." He rubbed her back underneath her
shirt. "I just wish...I hadn’t wasted so much time getting in my
own way. Although, I guess there was always something in my
way."

Miranda clenched the back of his chair.
"Michael, please..."

"I’m sorry." He grabbed her hips. "I just
play it over and over in my mind sometimes and I just can’t see how
it could have worked between us any earlier."

"Why do you have to be so god damned
obsessive? You still can’t be happy that I love you now?"

"Excuse me for wondering if it would have
been more fun making love to you than coming up with ways to get to
you. Then again, I guess being with an inexperienced teenager isn’t
much of a fantasy compared to being with Boston’s Most Eligible
Bachelor."