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“Why, Annie?”
“Because nothing makes sense, you know?” Her words were slightly muffled against his chest, thick with held-back tears, but he understood her completely.
“I’ve spent my whole life with preconceived notions of how things were, thinking that they matched society’s dictates about what was acceptable. When, in truth, my notions were little more than the protective, desperate understandings of a thirteen-year-old girl.”
Ah. Annie was finally waking completely up. He used to wonder if there would be a day when she’d be able to face her deepest self. Had hoped to be there when and if that time came.
And it put her leagues ahead of him, now.
“Change is always scary.” He quoted from one of his pamphlets. “Even good change.”
“It’s not just about the change. I’ve had enough of that in that past six years to know that anything can become routine with the passage of time.”
There was real truth to that. Even lying naked on a floor started to feel normal, if one did it long enough. If there was never anything else.
“It’s more that I don’t trust me.”
Blake frowned at this unexpected turn in the conversation. Annie was one of the most confident people he’d ever known. So sure of herself. Always.
“I’ve lived so rigidly, Blake, following all of my own rules, expecting those in my life to follow them, as well.”
But it wasn’t a bad thing. Annie knew what she wanted and wouldn’t settle for less.
“And now I find that the basis for my rules doesn’t exist. I’ve built my entire life on quicksand.”
“No, Annie, you haven’t. You’ve lived by your heart, and the life you’ve built is on solid ground.” A man like him, someone without that stability, could easily recognize what she had. “You’ve got work you love and are great at. Do you know how many people go their whole lives without that? They get up every day and go to a job because it pays the bills, not because they enjoy what they’re doing. They spend more waking hours at something they don’t like than anything else, and then they go home tired, do a few chores, go to bed and get up to start the whole thing over again.
“But not you, Annie. You give your whole self to your day, even to the point of riding a bike to the paper so that the mundane experience of traveling to the job becomes an additional joy to you.”
“You like your job.” Her voice was weaker than normal, vulnerable sounding.
“Yes, I do.” And he was grateful for it—every single day. “You also have relationships that you’ve cultivated day after day, year after year,” he told her. “Those are the most solid foundation life has to offer.”
“Becky and Cole, you mean?”
“And your mother.”
“I didn’t cultivate that.”
“Yes, you did. You stepped up to the plate for her when she could not, Annie. You helped her keep her family together, caring for Cole and the house when she wasn’t around. And even after you didn’t have to ever se
e her again, you kept in touch, spent every holiday with her. You might not have enjoyed those things. You might have resented her for making you do them—as you saw it—but the doing is what mattered. You planted a seed, watered it. And while you’ve been busy elsewhere, it’s grown and matured into something that will never die.”
She pushed away from him, sat up and stared.
“What?”
“Where’d all that come from?” Her mouth was open.
Put on the spot like that, Blake drew a blank.
“Do you realize that is the longest speech you’ve ever made to me?” Her eyes held amazement. “Maybe the only speech?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, letting go of her. “I didn’t mean to lecture.”
“Don’t apologize! I spent all the years of our marriage yearning for you to open up and talk to me. I’d gladly hear lectures every single day, if they came from you.”
Seeming to realize what she’d just said, Annie quickly shut her mouth.
