Act of God

you still being... attached to Beth. I thought it was—I was going to say ‘admirable,’ but I really mean ‘desirable.’ That faithfulness was a character trait that made me... that made me think I wanted to love you. And then your other traits started to grow on me, too. Your sense of duty, of ethics, even your sense of humor. And I realized I did love you, and I do love you, but...”
    “But what?”
    “I get the feeling sometimes, not often but too often, that I’m some kind of... stand-in, that I’m not really the one m your life yet.”
    “ Nancy , there hasn’t been anybody else, not even close.”
    “You don’t understand. I’m not saying there’s somebody else. Or I guess I am.” Another swipe with the finger. ‘You’re still tied to Beth, like you haven’t really taken hold of me as the person in your real life.”
    “Nance, I spend all my ‘real’ life with you.”
    “But that’s just the point, John. You give me the impression you want to spend time with me, but not your life with me.”
    “How? How do I do that?”
    “The auction.”
    “The auction?”
    “Yes. I wanted to go down there with you, not just to have a ‘stevedore,’ but to have somebody help me pick out a piece of furniture that we’d kind of buy together, a start on nice things that we’d own together and use together and look at over the years together, watch last together.”
    I let out a breath. “And all I did was take potshots at it. “
    “At the auction, at the furniture, at me. It was all just a... lark, the boy indulging the girl in what she wanted to do and being a wiseass about even that.”
    “Nance, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say something?”
    “I started to, in the car on the way back. But then you seemed to come around, the way you do, and I thought you’d gotten the idea. Then after you hurt... got hurt, I couldn’t very well be mad at you for your attitude when the thing I bought was the reason you were hurt.”
    “ Nancy , the reason I hurt myself was because I was too stubborn about thinking I was man enough to move that bureau without more help.”
    She stared at me. “You’re doing it again, John.”
    “Doing what again?”
    “Making it seem like you got it, like you’re a sensitive man who can be objective about himself. So now we’ll start joking and move off the subject and into the bedroom for some tender, soothing sex.”
    Nancy was right. It was hard for me to see it, much less admit it, but she was right.
    I took her left hand, the one she didn’t use on the tears, in mine. “I’m not sure this is going to help, but let me explain something to you. Beth was the only woman I ever knew, and not just biblically. She was half of me, Nance, the half that didn’t have to be the ex-MP or the insurance investigator. I could relax with her, confide in her, not worry about myself around her. Then she got taken, slowly, and that half of me went with her. It just wasn’t there anymore when I woke up in the morning or went to bed at night. In the time we’ve been together, I’ve felt some of that half coming back to me, back into me, but it’s not all there yet. I do know that from the moment I first saw you in that courtroom, I felt a ‘ping’ inside me, something I hadn’t felt since I’d lost her. You started me back up, Nance.”
    “ Ping and start up. I feel like an ignition key.”
    “Now who’s joking us off the subject?”
    “Sorry.”
    “So I’m back on track, kid, and it’s thanks to you. But I’m not to where I was with Beth, and I’m not sure I ever will be. Or can be.”
    Her stare got a little hollow. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard you say, John Cuddy.”
    “It’s the truth. If you’d rather I lied to you, I’d rather leave.”
    “Don’t.”
    “Which?”
    “Either.” She wet her lips. “I know... I don’t really know what it was like for you to lose Beth, John. I lost my dad when I was too young to understand it and my mom when I was in law school, but those were parents, people I’d taken as given. I don’t know what it’s like to lose the one person you’ve sought out, the one you expect to spend the rest of your life with, but I do know this.”
    “What?”
    “I’d know what that was like if I ever lost you.”
    She put her face in the crook of my good shoulder and started to cry.
    I gave her a while. Then, “Nance?”
    A muffled sound.
    “When I called you ‘Beth’ before, there was a reason.” Her