Quest and Tillie

Chapter 15: Being A Dad

Before we got up to leave our first appointment with Ellis, she challenged Quest and me with an assignment for the upcoming week before our next session.

"Part of this counseling is learning how to be together again as the people you are now," she said. "Especially since you've been apart for about a year and because next week's session will be very difficult. So I'd like you to go to a restaurant you've never been to before -- I'd suggest going somewhere out of town so you aren't interrupted by people who know you -- and talk about anything but the past. Talk about the present. Things you're doing now. Fill each other in on the gaps of the last year -- except your therapy."

After Quest paid for our session, he walked me out to my car. He opened my car door, but before I could get in, he put his arm across the opening, blocking me from getting in. That surprised me because it was an old move, one he executed whenever we had, for whatever reason, driven separately to a place and had to drive home separately. And he always did it to give me a deep kiss right before he told me to drive carefully because I had the most important person in the world in my car. Funny the things you forget...and how they come rushing back at you.

"Til, would you let me find a restaurant? Pick a night, tell me what time works with your school schedule and I'll find a place for us to go out of town and take care of the reservations."

That was new. Quest had always left the restaurants to me, happy to eat at whatever place I'd chosen. Since I knew his food tastes as well as my own, he'd trusted me to find a restaurant. He'd always said it was because of the way his parents were with going out to eat. His dad would ask his mom where she wanted to go and she'd say she didn't care. So then his dad would suggest a place and she'd say she didn't really want to go there. Then his dad would suggest another place and his mother would nix that idea, too, and so on until his dad just threw up his hands and told his mother to pick the damn restaurant. So this was outside of the norm. Our old norm, anyway, and maybe that was the point.

"Sure. That's fine."

"And," he continued, "since we're going out of town, would you let me pick you up and take you there? It could give us some extra time to talk and catch up."

When he saw me hesitate, he jumped right in. "No pressure, Tillie. I understand if you want to go separately."

Thinking of something Ellis had said in our session, I considered her words. Maybe they applied here.

This isn't going to be you two running across a meadow toward each other, arms outstretched, in slow motion. This is a process of taking a few, tentative, very careful steps toward one another over very rough, rocky, uneven terrain. And sometimes, a rock under your foot is going to shift, you'll feel yourself slipping and you'll have to take a step back and begin stepping forward again.

He'd taken a step toward me, so I put my foot out on that rocky ground and told him he could pick me up. Quest smiled at me, one of his sweet smiles I used to get all the time...until he betrayed us, and I hadn't been there to see his smiles and he hadn't been there to give them. He took a deep breath but didn't remove his arm from across the door opening, so I knew he wasn't done.

"Once you let me know when you're free, I'll take care of it and let you know. Drive carefully, Til, because you have the most important person in the world in your car," he said softly.

And only then did he remove his arm, so I got into my car and Quest watched me drive away. My emotions were all over the place considering the marriage counseling session we'd just been through and all Ellis had said to us, warned us about and asked us to do. She was right when she'd said we were both in for some tough times ahead.