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“I’m not sure I want to go into it tonight,”
he said, almost pleading, but acknowledging to himself that he
would, at some point, have to go into it.

“So, there is something else you haven’t told
me.” She crossed her arms, staring into her lap. “How many times
has this happened,” she said sarcastically. “Honestly, I should be
used to it by now.”

“There’s just this. And one other thing. But
neither one is what you think.”

“Two things. Wonderful. Then why don’t you
enlighten me, so I don’t assume the worst.”

He pulled a quarter out of his pocket and
flipped it in the air.

“What are you doing?” She looked at him,
irritated. It was getting late, her plans for the evening were
ruined, and now he wanted to play games.

“Heads or tails. I’m letting fate decide what
to talk to you about first,” he said. “We might as well get it all
out, I suppose, so tomorrow we can try to have a nice day.” He
raised his hand to peek. “Shit. All right, let’s do that one
first.” He sighed in resignation and rose. “I’ll be right
back.”

He left the room, took the stairs with
sluggish steps, and rustled around upstairs. A moment later, he
returned with an envelope.

“I was saving this for the right time. I’m
not sure when that was ever going to be. I guess now’s as good a
time as any.” He turned it over and she strained to see the
feminine script on the front of it. He pulled out a smaller
envelope from inside and placed it in front of her. “I found this
in the trunk of Jean’s things when we got the telegram. There was a
letter addressed to me, asking me to give this to you when you were
ready. I’m not sure what she meant by ready, but here it is.”

She looked up from the letter at Jonathan as
if she had been stabbed. “It’s from . . . her?”

“I guess there are things she needed to say
to you.”

Ava didn’t break her expression of disbelief.
“Oh, I’ll bet there are. Only now, she’s dead and I can’t have my
say in return.” She shoved the letter across the table. “I won’t
have a one-sided conversation.”

“Ava, please.”

“No!” she screamed suddenly. “No more Ava,
please!” she spit the words mockingly. “Every time I turn around
you’re saying Ava, please. And I’m done.” She shoved her chair back
and stood up, glaring down at him. “No. This time, it’s Jonathan,
please. Jonathan, please understand that I am sick and tired of
your past haunting me. I had nothing to do with it, and it’s not
fair that it’s wormed its way into our marriage and ruined my
life.”

“I hardly think it’s ruined your life.”

“It’s my turn to talk, Jonathan!” He recoiled
slightly as she screeched at him. “Your past, everything from who
you slept with to how you ran your business has affected me, and
all you can say is ‘Ava please’. I’m forced to cope with the
fallout of every decision you have ever made, things I never had a
choice about and then!” She laughed, short and maniacally. “I have
your bastard son to suddenly contend with.” Anger flashed deep in
his eyes. “Someone that will always remind me, and you, for that
matter, of her. I have to be reminded every day of the other woman
you loved. And now you want me to read a letter from her. I will
not, Jonathan. You can go straight to hell.” He opened his mouth to
counter but she had only paused to take a breath. He folded his
arms and tilted his head to the side, waiting for her to finish. “I
lost everything with you, I lived in that horrible tenement with
you, waiting for Victor to torture us, scared of what he’d do next,
I stood by you while you crumpled into someone who didn’t care
about anything anymore, I took care of you when you were attacked,
I half-starved with you and every day I told myself that you were
going to snap out of it. You were going to fix everything and be
the hero that you love to be. It didn’t once cross my mind to
abandon you!” Fury was boiling through her, months of repressed
anger and frustration welling to the top, causing words to spill
over without concern for their consequences. She walked over to the
sink. He raised his head, yelling at her back.

“Yes, it did! You said you were going to
Maura’s after Christmas. But she wouldn’t take you in, so you
stayed. Don’t act like you did me a favor by staying, you had
nowhere else to go!” He looked away and bit his lip with instant
regret. Without thinking, she spun around, picked up a plate from
the drain board, and hurled it across the kitchen. It shattered
against the wall with a thunderous crash, shards of ceramic flying
in all directions. He ducked, covering his head. Her breath was
ragged with adrenaline, fuming with rage, trying to arrange the
most hurtful words possible.

“I could have gone back to him,” she snarled.
“To Victor. He would have taken me in, even if only to finally beat
you at something.” She spoke slowly, seething. He was utterly
shocked and instantly enraged. His hand curled around the sugar
bowl and hurled it across the room, leaving a gash in the plaster
by the kitchen window.

“How dare you!” he roared. “You would be a
whore for him, wouldn’t you? Yet you condemn Elyse for caring about
me!” He stood, absentmindedly groping for something else to throw.
Both fully consumed by deep hurt and irrational rage, there was
only one mission now and that was to hurt the other as mortally as
possible.

Jonathan Sr. poked his head in the doorway
with frightened concern. “Jon. Everything okay?” he asked
timidly.

“No!” he yelled at him. “Everything is
definitely not okay.” He went back to staring at Ava with
revulsion. “Go away and leave us alone.” They stared intently at
each other with narrow, hate-filled eyes that dared the other to
speak, or look away.

“Take it back,” Jonathan ordered with a low
voice, thick with warning. “Take your words back before everything
we have is destroyed.”

“I’ll take it back, if you send him back,”
she challenged unreasonably.

“I’m not sending him back. He’s my son and I
love him!” The words surprised both of them. In his own heart and
mind, he had admitted to growing fond of Jean, forging a bond, and
even beginning to feel fiercely protective of him. But he hadn’t
admitted, until this moment, that he loved him. He sat down hard in
the chair and lowered his head. “I love him,” he repeated. “And
he’s staying with me.” His slightly shocked but resigned expression
told her this was no longer negotiable.

“And what if I said it’s me or him, Jonathan?
Who would you choose?”

“You wouldn’t make me choose. You’re angry,
you’re pregnant, and your emotions are running high.” He looked
down, his fury somewhat diffused from those realizations.

“You’d choose him,” she whispered. He shook
his head slowly.

“It would be an impossible choice, Ava.” He
rested his arms on his knees and hung his head down, closing his
eyes, suddenly very tired.

“Tell me, Jonathan,” she started, “after
Elyse, Ruth, Jean, and even Aryl and Caleb, is there anyone else
you love more than me? Just so I can place myself in the proper
pecking order.”

He sighed heavily, feeling frustration
welling up again.

“Elyse is dead and I never loved her like you
think I did. Ruth, I didn’t really care about in the first place.
Jean is my son and I’ll protect him like I protect you, or from
you, if necessary. And leave my friends out of this. Especially
Aryl.”

“Even him before me?” She looked around in
disbelief. “I had no idea I ranked so low.” He sprung from the
chair, a split second later an inch from her face, gripping her
shoulders.

“There is nothing I love more than you.
Nothing!” he said through his teeth. “But you don’t believe me, do
you? You want me to prove it? I guess there’s only one way to do
that.” He took a step back, yanked up his sleeve, and thrust his
wrist in her face. “Christmas Eve. While you all were walking to
Maura’s, warm with hot buttered rum, I was sitting in the bathtub
with a razor to my wrist. That’s what my Dad meant, Ava. I had
completely given up. I wanted to die so badly and was within a few
seconds of accomplishing that when Aryl found me.”

Her mouth fell open, all the rage drained
away as she stared at the thin white scar in shock while he spoke.
“At first, nothing he said made a difference. In fact, while he was
rattling on, I had decided to move the razor to my throat and pull
very quickly because that way there would be no time for him to
save me.” He winced at the memory before going on. “But then he
talked about you. See, I thought you’d be better off without me.
Thought I was doing you a favor. He didn’t mention you to convince
me that you needed me or even that you loved me, after all I had
put you through. He worked an angle he knew would get my attention.
He told me that if I did it, he would take you to Victor. That he
would hand you over to him the first chance he got. His act was
very convincing. That’s the only thing that stopped me.” He stared
at her eyes, which were fixed on the scar, brimming with tears. “He
pulled me out of that bathtub, and I did what he asked of me. I put
one foot in front of the other and kept going. That’s what I did
until I gradually returned to myself. But you.” He lowered his arm,
sliding the sleeve over it. “You were the only thing to pull me
back.” She reached down and circled the wrist with her fingers as
she contemplated his words. “The thought of him taking you to
Victor . . . And then you threaten me with the same thing.” He
yanked his wrist from her grip and glared at her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, refusing to look
him in the eyes.

“You should be.” He walked back to the table
and sat down hard, leaning his elbows on the table, holding his
head in his hands.

The wind had begun to blow in small gusts and
the tip of a tree branch scraped against the windowpane. The noise
sent shivers up Ava’s spine as she stood against the sink, wiping
tears. He took deep, ragged breaths and touched his own eyes
discreetly.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh, “for
everything.” She stared at his bent head, unsure of what to say.
Too much had happened for her to just tell him it’s okay and be
done with it. She wanted to comfort him. He looked remorseful
enough, but she willed herself against the sink, determined to hash
this out so she’d never have to hear another ‘Ava, please’. He
sniffled and wiped his face with both hands. “I’m sorry,” he
repeated. “All I ever tried to do is protect you. From everything.
Seems like everything I tried to protect you from found a way
around me and hurt you anyway.”

“If you had just told me everything from the
start, Jonathan.”

“I know. You’re right. I should have talked
to you when I saw everything start to fall apart. I should have
told you who we had to rent from.”

“That would have been better than the way I
found out.” She nodded in agreement. He sighed, recalling their
first major fight and then quickly shook his head.

“No. I never should have agreed to it. Even
if it meant leaving our friends and moving you here, that’s what I
should have done. Found something else or brought you to Rockport.
I should have thought more of you when we were there,” he
continued. “I got lost in my own self-pity, and I’m sorry.”

“It was a bad time for us all, Jonathan,” she
said quietly.

“No, I was selfish. I should have told you
about Elyse, too. I just didn’t want you to think badly of me. It
was an odd arrangement, I admit. But most importantly, I didn’t
want you to know because I never wanted you to feel like you had to
compete or weren’t good enough.”

“It would be hard for any woman to not feel
less than average standing next to her,” Ava said with a hint of
venom.

“Only for the reason that you don’t see what
I see,” he said, looking up at her with tired eyes. “There is no
competition. And I should have told you about Ruth.” He leaned
back, folded his arms, and stared at the tablecloth. “I can’t begin
to tell you how unimportant she was, Ava. I explained why I didn’t
mention her when we first met, but I should have told you later.”
All she could do was nod, suddenly exhausted and unable to hold
onto her burning anger with her husband pouring his heart out. “I
didn’t know about Jean, so there is no way I could have warned you
about that,” he said with a helpless shrug. Some of the anger she
thought she was too tired to feel returned with a vengeance, and
her ears burned red. She opened her mouth with a string of hurtful
words at the ready. “But I should have talked to you before
deciding to keep him,” he said, before she could hurl them across
the room.

“Yes, you should have,” she said firmly.

“And about my grandfathers.” He sighed long
and hard. “There’s so much I should have done, and I’m sorry.” He
stood and walked over to her, wrapped his arms around her slowly
and buried his face in her hair. Her folded arms stayed wedged
between them, her body slightly rigid as he slowly rocked her.

“Please forgive me,” he whispered. Ava
blinked away tears, unfolded her arms, and placed her hands lightly
on his waist. A strike of lightning lit the room with an intense
flash and a deafening thunderclap overhead shook the house.
Jonathan instinctively pulled her closer and then laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Her voice was muffled
against his shoulder.

“I just keep doing it. Trying to protect you,
I mean. I’d throw myself in front of a bolt of lightning for you,
you know.” She meant her laugh to be endearing, but it came out as
a scoff.

“If you didn’t push me in front of it first,”
he added with a twitch of his lips. He moved, his eyes closed and
bent his head to rest his forehead on hers. “I love you so much,
Ava.”

“There are things you can protect me from,
Jon. And I want you to when it’s needed. I love that about you.
You’ve always been there, standing in front of me, strong and
confident.” Her hands moved over his shoulders, taking a moment to
enjoy the depth and width of them. She covered every inch of them
and then she rested her hands, fingers spread wide, over his chest.
“But you can’t protect me from everything.”