Larenzo gathered her up in his arms. ‘And that made you stay away from real relationships?’
‘I guess, although I didn’t connect the dots that simply. But I’ve always moved around a lot, and I’ve spent a lot of time on my own. I never felt like I needed anything or anyone else.’
‘So what changed you?’
‘You did,’ she said simply. ‘You were the first person that made me want to be different.’
‘I’m glad,’ Larenzo said softly. ‘Because you made me want to be different too.’
And during those few weeks, their happiness was not unalloyed; the past continued to mar the perfect landscape of their joy, as Emma had known it would, as she’d warned Larenzo it would, and yet...
It was hard. Harder than she’d expected.
More than once she woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed, and when she went in search of Larenzo she’d find him in his study, working or sometimes just staring into space.
‘I’ve had trouble sleeping since prison,’ he told her, but Emma saw the way his gaze flicked away from hers, and she felt there was more he wasn’t saying.
Several times she went out with Ava and returned late, to be faced with Larenzo’s sudden and inexplicable wrath.
‘You should have phoned,’ he stormed one night when Emma had come back after dinner.
‘I tried,’ she answered as calmly as she could. Ava was squirming to get out of her snowsuit. ‘But the reception was bad—’
‘In Manhattan?’ he scoffed. ‘You can get reception anywhere. Or were you not in Manhattan?’
Emma sat back on her heels and looked up, meeting his gaze steadily. ‘Are you accusing me of something, Larenzo?’ she asked quietly and he sagged suddenly, looking older than his thirty-five years.
‘No. No, of course not,’ he said, and they both dropped it, but each of those tense interactions made Emma weary. Understanding someone had trust issues and living with it were two very different things.
But even worse than Larenzo’s bouts of suspicion were the dark moods that overtook him so he retreated into himself and nothing Emma did could reach him. Eventually he’d come out of it again, whether it was hours or days, and he would shoot her a look of apology that Emma accepted with a silent nod. He had hard memories; she understood that. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
The week before Christmas she went to New Jersey with Ava to visit Meghan. She’d already told her sister she would be spending Christmas in the city with Larenzo; Meghan had been disappointed but understanding.
‘You look tired,’ she said when she met Emma at the train station. ‘Is Ava keeping you up at night?’
‘No, she’s actually sleeping through for once.’ Emma opened the car door and began to buckle Ava into her car seat. ‘I’m fine.’ She avoided her sister’s gaze as she said it; the truth was, she was tired because Larenzo had been up in the night, unable to sleep, and when Emma had confronted him about it he’d become angry and stalked off. In the morning they hadn’t mentioned the argument, and now Emma wondered if it would always be like this.
‘Are you happy?’ Meghan asked bluntly. ‘With Larenzo? Because I’ll be honest, Em, you don’t actually look that happy.’
‘I am happy,’ Emma protested. ‘I love him.’
‘Loving someone doesn’t always equal happiness.’
‘It should,’ Emma answered as she stared out of the window. ‘It should,’ she said again, and she heard the defeat in her voice.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, the muted landscape of the suburbs in winter streaming by. ‘So what’s going on?’ Meghan asked eventually. ‘Because obviously something is.’
Emma sighed. ‘Nothing, really, it’s just...you were right. It’s hard sometimes. Larenzo has a lot of...’
‘Emotional baggage?’
‘Yes. But I do too,’ Emma said quickly, and to her surprise Meghan nodded.
‘More than you think.’
‘Now what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Come on, Emma. Most people whose parents divorced when they were kids manage to get over it and have healthy relationships of their own.’
Emma stiffened. ‘So what are you saying exactly? That I’m some kind of freak?’
‘No, of course not,’ Meghan answered. ‘But Mom leaving was really hard on you. Maybe because of our lifestyle growing up, all the moves, all the different cities and schools. You never had a friend for long.’