to get him out of her life. Not that she would wish him on anyone, but perhaps he would be different with someone else, someone stronger, someone who would stand up to him.
Not like Tracy, who hides in the bathroom for hours at a time. She feels safe in there, but doesn’t recognize the woman she gazes at in the mirror. When did she lose her self ? When did she become such a victim? So weak? How did she ever allow this to happen, particularly when she had known, as she watched her father hit her mother, that she wouldn’t have stood for it, had known that if she were her mother she would have left?
Oh the innocence of childhood.
If there is anything good to have come of this, some small consolation, it is that Jed can’t hit her when he is with Kit, and he can’t hit her while she is at Robert McClore’s. Moving in with Robert, Tracy has said, is an integral part of her plan, and she has had something of a reprieve—until the other week, when Jed vented his fury about something inconsequential, and no one was around to stop it.
The black eye is finally fading.
And in all this mess, this violent, dysfunctional, unhappy mess, there is Robert McClore. Robert McClore, who is the only bright spot in her life, who loves her for who she is. He doesn’t seem to want her to be anyone else. For the first time ever she is accepted and adored.
And Tracy feels the same way about Robert.
Edie shakes her head and tuts when she hears Steve’s voice on the answering machine.
“I still don’t like him.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Kit says with a sigh. “I don’t think he’s going to be around much longer.”
“You’ve seen the light? ”
Kit shrugs. There are so many things she’s seen recently, so many changes; and having the wrong man in her life seems pointless right now.
For as blissful as it is to be having sex again, the more she sees Steve, the less she feels for him, and sex with no feeling behind it, is even more depressing than having no sex at all.
She doesn’t know why she doesn’t feel more. There is no denying that he is the most handsome man she has ever been with. He is thoughtful and considerate. He goes out of his way to make her feel special. He never turns up empty-handed, and professes to adore her.
And he is quite spectacular in the sack.
But it isn’t enough. She isn’t excited about seeing him. There is an initial thrill at having landed someone with his beauty, but it doesn’t last. A few minutes in and she finds herself bored.
He hands her flowers, gifts, perfume, and she is starting to think, again ? Please, no!
The more bored she becomes, the more Steve is pursuing her.
And the more she is pursued, the more she misses Adam.
Particularly now. When her life feels more unsettled than ever before, she recognizes that Adam provides a safety and security she desperately needs. Even with his betrayal, now that Annabel has gone, now that her house is her own again—oh Lord, how much she missed the peace and quiet!—she finds herself thinking more and more about Adam.
And she is not thinking about the fact that Adam slept with Annabel. The pain of the betrayal has subsided for she understands how it happened, and why. She understands that Adam doesn’t owe her anything, and she understands how Annabel, when in charm mode, was almost irresistible. She fell for her herself.
What she thinks about, when she thinks of Adam, is the Adam that she loved. The one she loved being with, before he got so caught up in work he didn’t see her any more, didn’t hear her, didn’t appreciate her.
Loving, she realizes, is a verb. It is an act. It is not enough to say you love someone, and then forget about them, or trust a relationship will stay strong simply because you share a house or children or a life.
Loving requires acts of love. It requires thinking of your spouse, doing things for them to make them happy. It requires acting in loving ways, even when you are tired, or bogged down with work, or so stressed you are waking up every night with a jaw sore from grinding your teeth.
They forgot to do that, she now knows. They forgot to love each other. They expected love to continue, without putting any work into it,