Eighteen

Emily managed to control her urge to call Trent for a few days, tempered as her desire was with a fair amount of guilt. Finally, a few days later, she phoned the number which had shown up on her phone when he called her from the restaurant, ostensibly to thank him for the evening. He answered immediately, and they talked for quite a while. The band was starting a summer tour, fifteen or twenty dates throughout the United States, finishing with a show in Toronto on the Labour Day weekend. Emily was disappointed that he would not be around for the summer, but knew, too, that work usually got busy at this time of year for her, as well, when people took to the outdoors and did stupid things, and when colleagues took vacation. It was just as well, she told herself, that he was far away.

The issue of Emily’s guilt remained constant as well. That Emily had not kissed any man besides Thomas in more than twelve years was not especially an issue, unless she thought about it and insecurity reared again. The issue to which she kept coming back had more to do with the fact that the man she’d kissed was not Thomas. Undeniably, she missed him. But the sense that she was moving on, leaving him behind her, provoked a profound melancholy, that not even hot summer days at the beach with her children could assuage. There was, under the surface, the sense that she shouldn’t be entitled to move forward, since Thomas could not. Yet, at the same time, she watched their children progress day by day, minute by minute, and knew, intellectually, at least, that the family in its new form was maturing, in spite of their loss.

The constant tension between grief for one man and desire for another made Emily tired. Some days, it was all she could do to get herself out of bed. The twins were home from school, and her presence on non-work days was in high demand, so she was unable to crawl back between the covers, as she often had during the school year. And although she tried her best to cover it up, her nerves were frayed and she knew she was far less patient with the children than their behaviour warranted. Ellen refrained from commenting, in her typical low-key style, and kept the children busy with activities. When Emily acknowledged it, Ellen replied dismissively, “Don’t you worry about it, Em. I love every second of it.” The gently and non-judgmentally implied message was that Emily should take the time she needed for herself. Emily was grateful beyond words.

A significant part of Emily’s disquiet also stemmed from the knowledge that she still hadn’t told Trent about Thomas and her children. Trying to convince herself it was a non-issue was difficult. Lost love, early widowhood, parenthood (single parenthood), they were all things Emily thought of as Formative Experiences, significant events and processes that had shaped who she was. Even so, convincing herself that Trent would be accepting of all she was tended to be slightly beyond the limits of her faith in love. It seemed too good to be true. He seemed too good to be true. Emily knew firsthand how quickly love could slip through one’s fingers, and found she was reticent to try again. The depth of her pain on losing Thomas, her understanding of the sheer despair of those early days, for it was more than mere memory, it was a wound, a scar on her soul, had changed her fundamentally. No longer did the seemingly frivolous rush of an obsession, a crush, seem worth the potential loss. And Trent, she told herself repeatedly, was just that: a crush. A fling. A summer romance that need not develop any roots or wings. An outlet. She told herself over and over again that surely there was no shortage of willing women for a rock band on tour. And at the same time, she tried not to admit that the prospect of it hurt a little. A lot.

Even still, that was how Emily justified her lie of omission, her half-conscious decision not to tell Trent about her family. Anyway, she rationalized, he never asked, so it wasn’t like a real lie, more like a white lie, half-truth. If he wasn’t interested enough to ask, she thought one second, then he was getting what he deserved. The next second, worried he might not care enough to ask, and insecure and apprehensive, she managed to convince herself that he was feeding her a line. If that’s true, she berated herself, in the odd moment of clarity and insight, then why are you so upset at the prospect? She was forced to admit she was far more interested than she felt was safe or prudent. In any case, if the number of times per day that her thoughts turned to Trent Buchanan was any indication, she was already in far deeper than she wanted to be, and all she could do at this point was hold on and see where the roller coaster took her.

The challenge, Emily knew, would be to maintain the control of herself and her emotions for the sake of her family.