Part III: The Journey
What the hell am I doing?? The thought echoed through both their heads, as Carly drove down the interstate, AJ sitting tensely at her side. They were about an hour away from the clinic; neither of them had uttered more than ten words, total. Both of them were approaching the conclusion that whatever else this had been, it had been a mistake.
AJ reached for the radio, abruptly, desperate for something, anything, to break the silence. “You mind?” he asked Carly, looking over at her, but doing his damnedest not to look her in the eye.
Carly was no more willing to catch his; she kept her eyes trained on the road. She shrugged. “Whatever. But, no classical and no country.”
He fiddled with the knobs a moment, finding a blues station and sat back in his seat, turning the volume on low. After a moment, Carly looked over at him. “Could you turn it to something with, like, words, please?” she said, her voice slightly sharp.
AJ bit back the sharp retort he could feel building automatically in his mouth. That tone of Carly’s, the way she spoke -- he knew it was perverse, but his old, old reactions towards her surfaced: the only thing he wanted to do was exactly the opposite of whatever she wanted him to do. He took a deep breath. “It’s the blues, Carly,” AJ said, evenly. “I thought it was kind of appropriate, given the two of us.”
Carly shot him a look; it took everything AJ had not to snap at her to look at the road. “I know the blues, AJ, okay? My uncle owns a damn blues club; I work there four days out of seven. The last thing I need is to listen to it on my downtime.” She reached into the backseat for a black leather tape case and started to toss it to AJ. “Here; if there’s nothing on the radio-- What?” Carly demanded, taking in his clenched jaw and stiff posture.
“Nothing,” he said, shortly. After a brief pause, AJ spoke again, unable to help himself. “It would just be nice if you kept your eyes on the road.”
Carly looked at him incredulously, pointedly. “What the hell? Are you giving me driving pointers, AJ?” She laughed, harshly.
“Careful, Carly,” AJ warned, gritting his teeth. “Don’t push me.”
“Don’t push you?” She stared at him in the mirror. “Honey, you think that is pushing? Try this one on for size: only way I’m gonna take driving lessons from you is when I wanna figure out how to crash into the broadside of a tree.” The minute she said it, Carly knew it was going too far. She had forgotten what it felt like, arguing with AJ; it was almost like a sick compulsion -- wound first, wound deep, go too far before he has a chance to.
There was an awful silence in the car; AJ’s eyes remained firmly fixed on the road. “Is this why you came for me?” he asked, finally, his voice cracking on the words. He turned in his seat to look at Carly. “To throw up my past, our past, in my face? To make me live it all over again? Too late, sweetheart,” from his lips the word was anything but an endearment. “I live it every day of my life, memories when I’m awake, dreams when I’m asleep. No one can torture me better than me, not even you, babe. So if this is what we’re doing here,” AJ paused, then looked back out to the road, fixing his eyes, “you wasted a trip.”
Carly’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, and for a moment, her expression darkened. Slowly, though, slowly, it passed. “I’m sorry,” she said, finally, and AJ turned to stare at her, stunned. Those were the last words he’d expected to hear from his ex-wife. “I didn’t come here to fight, AJ. Old habits die hard, I guess. But. that’s not it; that’s not why I’m here.”
AJ studied her face. “Then why did you come, Carly?” he asked, quietly. “What is this about? I know, I know what you said,” he lifted a hand as she started to speak. “Redemption. Whatever the hell that means. What do you want from me?”
Carly bit her lip so hard she was surprised there was no blood. She started to speak, then stopped, suddenly wrenching the steering wheel to the side and pulling the car off the road. Once she came to a stop, Carly turned to AJ, taking off her seat belt so she could face him, fully. “Do you know how long I tried to convince myself that you weren’t my baby’s father?” she asked him, her voice low, her skin pale. “From the day he was born, AJ, I wouldn’t believe it. Even after I knew, I knew the truth, I still tried to make it what I wanted it to be.” She let out a small, harsh laugh, and ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Hell, after you knew the truth, I still tried to make it be different, by pure force of will, I guess. ‘Cause if you weren’t Michael’s father, then I didn’t have to deal with you. Call what you and I were by any name. And, then after,” she bit her lip and looked away, her eyes staring unseeingly out the car window, “after my son died, it was -- easier. To hate you, to blame you, to x you out of my life and my son’s as if you were never in it.”
AJ’s hands clenched. Unclenched. Clenched again. It wasn’t like this was something he didn’t know, but knowing in the back of his mind and hearing her say the words were two very different things. “Tried? Wouldn’t?” He made himself speak calmly, quietly, calling on every one of the techniques he’d learned the past two years. But, nothing was enough to keep the rasp of emotion from his voice. “You’re speaking in the past tense, Carly. What changed?”
Carly turned from looking out the car window, and AJ saw the silver tracks of tears on her cheeks. “My son looked up at me. And, I looked into his eyes. And, they were yours. They were good and sweet and so full of trust, your eyes looking out at me from my baby’s face. I remembered,” Carly paused and almost smiled, “I remembered that there was a time when you used to look at me that way, a thousand years ago. In that moment, I had, I don’t know, an epiphany, I guess,” she wiped at her cheeks and looked at him, her words coming slowly. “I realized that I couldn’t keep hating you for becoming the man I helped turn you into. And I couldn’t keep blaming you for the death of Michael’s baby brother, not if I wanted my son, our son, to grow up with an undamaged soul. You didn’t kill my baby,” she looked in his eyes, the tears flowing freely now, “and you’re Michael’s father. That’s why I came to get you, AJ. To tell you that.”
AJ stared at his ex-wife, the woman he’d once loved so desperately that even hurting her had been a way of making a connection, and tried to make his mind bend around her words. It had been the last thing he’d expected to hear from her. Suddenly, he dropped his head in his hands. “You don’t know,” AJ choked out, his voice muffled, “how badly I needed to hear you say that, Carly. It’s one thing to accept, even to know that a thing’s true but to hear it from you--” AJ broke off, and his body started to shake. Without conscious volition, without thought Carly slid over in her seat, sliding her arms around him and bent her bright head over AJ’s dark one.
They sat that way a long moment, AJ shaking with dry sobs, Carly making small soothing noises as tears, healing tears, fell down her cheeks. Minutes, days, years later, AJ lifted his head, and Carly moved quickly away. They met each other’s eyes, seeing the other unshadowed for the first time since they’d been first been friends in that apartment building, so very long ago. Carly was the first one to break the silence. “He knows who you are,” she said abruptly. “Michael, I mean. He’s, you know, too young to remember living in your parents’ house when we were married, but we keep a picture of you in his room, by his bed. And, he knows that it’s a picture of his daddy. I haven’t told him any of the -- bad stuff. All he knows is that his daddy was sick and had to go away to get better.” Carly let out a small hiccuping laugh, the tension inside her drifting away. “He’s such a good boy, AJ, with the biggest heart; he loves you.”
AJ’s eyes closed, briefly. “Thank you,” he whispered. After a moment, he opened his eyes, running his fingers through his hair. He jerked his chin towards the road. “It’s a long road home, Carly,” he said softly, then turned to lock eyes with her. “Wanna get back on it?”
Carly was silent a long moment, then she reached over her chest for her seatbelt. She leaned forward and turned the key in the ignition. “Yeah,” she said, and looked over at him once more before pulling her car back out onto the road, “I really do.”
