Complicated

Chapter Sixty: Gone

You say you gotta go and find yourself
You say that you're becoming someone else
Don't recognize the face in the mirror
Looking back at you

David Cook – Come Back To Me

Don was quiet, but then again Grace was used to that these days. It had been over a eight weeks since the attack and in that time since leaving the hospital he had barely spoken more than two words to her. Grace understood it, Jesus she did but she had no idea how to combat it. He wouldn't let her touch him. Every time she wrapped her arms around his waist or placed a hand on his back or arm he would discreetly recoil.

They had barely slept together in the fortnight he had been home. The baby was sapping at Grace's energy like never before so she slept frequently and deeply whilst Don stayed up watching T.V. She would find him asleep on the couch in the early hours of the morning tangled up in the spare blankets. It had become an unspoken arrangement between them, one that Grace despised. Even on the night she tried to stay up with him, she would always find herself tucked up in bed alone.

Every day brought a similar kind of loneliness. When Grace would return home from work Don would be absent from the apartment. She had no idea where he was or what he did and when she asked he wasn't forthcoming with his answers. His physiotherapy sessions were usually in the morning so she really didn't have a clue what he did during the day. Every time she tried to engage him in conversation he would shake her off irritably.

Grace understood that he was frustrated, the cane that he walked with placed a large part of that building rage. Sometimes she could see it lurking behind his eyes when his gaze flickered towards it. He hated using it but it was necessary. The tendons in his thigh were still healing and in order to return to work he needed to be in peak condition. Underneath his cool exterior she knew he had to be worried about the direction his career may take. Don wasn't suited for a desk job, he enjoyed the puzzles and the thrill of the case, to chain him to a desk would be suicide. She couldn't imagine anything worse.

On a purely selfish level Grace didn't know how much more she could take of his inability to reconnect. She craved his touch at every single turn, she wanted to lay her hands on him and hold him more than anything in the world. Yet after the first few times Don had withdrawn from her it had become awkward so Grace had stopped herself reaching out because she couldn't stand to see the pained expression that clouded his features.

There was an absence in her chest and Grace hated it, it left her vulnerable and open to all sorts of creeping doubts. Grace had no idea how to bridge the void between them and she found it hard to talk to their friends about it at the risk of sounding self orientated and clingy.

The sound of his movements in front of the draining board of their kitchen snapped her from her thoughts as he dried the dishes. He still cooked and cleaned but she thought that was more about habit and routine as opposed to desire or urges. Even as she watched his movements she could see that they were mechanical, there was no thought or purpose to them. Don was simply going through the motions.

Grace wondered how long they could go on like this. They weren't a couple any more and this was not a relationship, this was simply two people existing in the same space. There was no intimacy between them, they didn't even get changed in the same room, which was more Don's preference as opposed to hers.

What had happened to him was beyond traumatic and had affected him in ways even she struggled to come to terms with. It was impossible for her to even begin to imagine what he had been through but there were other things at play here and the elephant was still in the room stretching between them. Neither of them had mentioned the baby since Don had returned home and Grace had been fighting every single impulse to bring it up.