I Always Will

Recovery

Rowan

I stir the thick meaty sauce in the pot, bickering with Chili on the phone, and wondering when the scent is going to lure Riley from his office.

I know how to cook one thing and one thing only. Grandma del Marco's bolognese sauce. When Bridge and I were little, we would spend long weekends with her, and she taught us how to make that one dish, because she said it was my dad's favorite comfort food and "God knows that mother of yours doesn't show any interest in learning to make it."

It's true. My mom doesn't cook. She grew up an only child on the Upper East Side of New York in a penthouse with a full time housekeeper. My dad grew up in a cramped Brownstone in Dyker Heights with working class parents, the youngest of four children.

They came from opposite ends of the New York Social scene. Different worlds, almost. Much like me and Riley. And much like me and Riley, they had to face a lot of skepticism about their love. My mother's parents thought my dad was a dreamer with no future. My dad's family thought Marianne was a bit stuck-up and only looking for a wild boy to build a teenage rebellion around. Their friends didn't much like each other at first. They took a lot of heat for their relationship.

Much like I'm taking from my best friend right now.

"Look, I know you still care about him," she's saying. "And I know you need to be there for him right now. But Riley is getting better, and you need an exit strategy, okay?"

I'm only half-listening to her. Chili is a little Nazi in her belief that I'm some kind of battered woman or something. Yes, my marriage got all messed up. Yes, I did way too many things to please Riley there at the end. But she forgets that for years two and three of my marriage, she and I were paryting it up in New Zealand and Riley felt like I was the one totally disregarding his feelings and wishes.

In this last month, after trying really hard to compromise with Riley on matters of no small importance—like his mobility issues and my poor lifestyle habits—I've come to see that we never compromised before. The first two years of our marriage, he was completely indulgent of me and I was completely selfish. The third year, he tried to tell me we were in trouble. I had two strategies to block hearing him. I placated him by doing what he wanted when we were together and doing what I damn well pleased behind his back or I completely distracted him from his concerns with sex. The fourth year, he was wise to my ways. I couldn't placate him anymore—not about the partying, the diet pills, the reckless stuff I did. We fought, I cheated, and he punished.

The fourth year is all Chili think of. She's never been married or even in a serious relationship. She doesn't see what I see know—for three years, I was digging the foundation right out from under my marriage.

"Row, are you even listening to me?" Chili hisses.

"Yes." Fuck it, I'm just gonna come out with the truth. "I don't think I want an exit strategy. I think...I want to work it out. I want him back."

"You want Maisy back? And the trackers on your cars? And you want to sit in production meetings and have Riley treat you like a piece of shit in front of the people you work with?"

"No, I don't want any of that back. I want a better relationship. A healthier one. I love him, Chili. We have problems but he says he still loves me too. He says...forgiveness doesn't seem impossible anymore."

She sighs. She's silent. I take the opportunity to listen for the lifts, indicating Riley might be coming upstairs from his office, but all is quiet. Apparently Chili is trying to get a hold of her temper because when she speaks again, she sounds sweet.

"Row, I can understand why he thinks that right now. And why you feel so...tenderly for him right now. But what happens when Riley is the actual Riley again?"