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We've been married for several weeks, yet she talks as if we only tied the knot today.
Penny seizes her daughter's hand and waves her arm in the air, clearly gesturing to me. Since I doubt I have a choice in the matter, I let Penny herd us both upstairs to the long gallery where the final stage of the reception will take place. It's become the dance floor.
I must seem dazed, considering the way Emery scrutinizes me as I take her in my arms for our first dance, cradling her palm in mine in the best approximation of formal dancing I can achieve. While I settle my hand over the small of her back, and she places hers on my shoulder, I exhale the breath I hadn't realized I was holding in until my ears started to ring. The tension in me eases a touch as we move across the floor together, turning in slow circles, keeping pace with the almost waltz-like tempo of the music. I don't know the song, but it's quite nice.
Emery smiles in a soft, almost loving way while gazing into my eyes.
She can't love me. I've given her no reason to feel that way. What I see in her eyes must be relief that the wedding is almost over, and soon we'll get back to everyday life.
But I realize with a mental jolt that I'm gazing at her in the same way. I don't need to see my face to understand. I feel it. The gentle, lulling music has seeped inside me, and I can't help searching for something in her eyes that will tell me what to do, how to give her what she needs.
I startle out of my reverie, not quite jerking, but blinking several times in the space of a second or two, as if I've gotten grit in my eyes.
No, I can't give Emery anything that she needs—except for a divorce.
Since I can't look at my wife anymore, I focus on the people around us. Gavin Douglas and my sister Jamie are entertaining the twin daughters of Hadley and Cole Wilson.
Emery loops her arms around my neck. "Did you fly Gavin back here for the wedding? Last I heard, he'd gone home to America. Jamie was bummed."
"I offered," I tell her, while I link my arms behind her back, "and Gavin accepted the invitation to travel here on the jet."
"You wanted Jamie to be happy."
"For one day, if nothing else. What happens next is up to him."
"That was very sweet of you. And it was extra sweet to invite Pam, Sabri, and Luke."
"Your happiness is worth any cost."
She tickles the nape of my neck with her fingertips. "You want people to think you're a grumpy grizzly, but you're really a teddy bear."
"You have a strange opinion of me." I regard her with guarded curiosity. "How can you call me sweet and a teddy bear after the way I've treated you?"
"Sometimes you are cranky. On rare occasions, you're a jerk. I understand why you are the way you are, though, and I accept it."
I try to pull my head back, but her hands prevent it. "Why would you do that?"
"Accept you as-is? Because I also know you want to evolve." She lifts onto her toes to level our gazes, letting my arms hold her off the floor. "Your therapy isn't over yet. You have potential, and I'll help you realize it in whatever way I can."
We lapse into silence while she rests her cheek on my shoulder. Her feet touch down on the floor.
And I stare into a distance even I can't see, a place too far away to reach. Emery thinks I'm "on rare occasions" a bastard. She must have selective memory loss, because I've been an ersehole more times than I've been kind to her. Whatever potential she thinks she sees in me, it's an illusion.
Sometimes, though, I wish I could be the man she imagines I am.
Emery whispers in my ear, "You are the handsomest groom ever, very regal and sexy in your formal kilt-wear."
I glance down at her but can't think of a thing to say. Should I compliment her dress? Or her hair? I've never been good at knowing what a woman wants to hear.
"Would it be rude if we snuck out of here?" she asks. "You slept in the other bedroom last night to make our mothers happy, but I'm feeling seriously deprived of sex and cuddling."
Cuddling. She wants more than sex, and I'm not sure I can handle that tonight. I've felt raw in too many ways ever since I woke up this morning.
"What's the matter, baby?" my wife asks.
"Nothing."
"Baloney."
