Page 35 of Trophy

Rob tried to do his normal routine on Monday, but it was absolute torture. Everywhere he went he thought about Allison. Everyone he saw asked him about her.

On Tuesday morning he couldn’t do it to himself again, so he just stayed home.

He tried to work on an old desk he was restoring in his workshop, but he couldn’t focus on it at all.

Then he tried to watch TV, but it got on his nerves.

He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t hungry. He couldn’t sit in a chair all day and stare across the street at Allison’s house, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

So what he ended up doing was cleaning his house.

He really cleaned it, in way he hadn’t done in years—maybe ever. He ended up with dozens of bags of garbage and endless boxes of stuff to give away to Goodwill. He cleaned every surface, and he scrubbed every floor, and he kept it up for two days.

On Wednesday afternoon he was almost through. He was working on the kitchen, which he’d saved for last. He’d emptied the refrigerator and was cleaning out all the shelves and inside walls when there was a knock on his door.

His heart leaped in excitement, immediately hoping it was Allison. Maybe she’d changed her mind. Maybe she’d decided he wasn’t as bad as she’d been thinking.

It wasn’t Allison. It was his mother.

“Mom,” he said in surprise, opening the storm door to let her in. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see you. What did you think?”

He looked over her shoulder at the driveway. “Where’s Dad?”

“He couldn’t get away. Isn’t this a miserable day? It’s so hot and humid it feels like the air should be dripping, but it just won’t rain.”

It was a miserable day—one that promised rain but never actually followed through. But he ignored her comment because the idea of her coming alone made his eyes go wide. “You drove all this way by yourself?”

For most people driving a half hour would hardly mean anything, but his mother hadn’t driven that far in years. The farthest she went anymore was the grocery store two miles from her house.

“Well, I had four different people call me, asking what was wrong with you because you weren’t going to work and weren’t answering your phone.

Your friend Keith called me and kept saying it was all his fault, so he couldn’t come by to see you, but that I needed to do something as soon as I could.

So I figured it was a crisis and I could brave the long drive. ”

Rob felt a wave of deep affection and embarrassment both. “Nothing is wrong.”

“I have eyes in my head, young man, and I know you’re telling me a lie.”

He sighed, almost a groan. He hadn’t shaved or slept or showered, so he knew he must be looking pretty rough.

Even someone less astute than his mother would have been able to tell he wasn’t in good shape.

He’d never thought he was one of those men who would fall apart like this because of a broken heart. “Allison dumped me.”

His mother’s eyes softened, and she reached out to pat his shoulder. “I assumed that was what happened. Why don’t you make me a cup of tea while I sit down and recover from that drive?”

A couple of days ago he would have sworn that he didn’t have any tea in the house. But he’d found a half-smashed box in the back of a cabinet as he’d been sorting through them. He dug it out again and put water in his coffeepot to get hot, since he didn’t own a kettle.

His mom settled at the kitchen table and watched him as he brought the mug and sugar over to her. He sat down next to her, itching to get back to cleaning the refrigerator, since that was the only thing distracting him from how it felt without Allison in his life.

“I see you’ve finally cleaned this house, so tell me what kind of mess you made of your love life,” she said, more gently than her usual tone.

He cleared his throat.

“You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

“That’s not always the way it works, you know.”

“Maybe so. But it’s a good first step anyway. Why did she end it?”

Rob leaned his head onto his hand and sighed hoarsely. “I don’t even know. It seemed to be all kinds of things. She thinks I don’t want an equal relationship with her.” He thought through the words Allison had used. “She thinks I’m going to turn her into another trophy wife.”

“And are you?”

“Of course not!”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Of course I did! She didn’t believe me.”

“You don’t want her just because she’s so pretty and stylish and sophisticated?”

He jerked his head up, so surprised was he by the question. “You know that’s not all it is.”

“And you don’t want her merely to prove that a guy like you can get a girl like her?”

This came too close to his thoughts early on in their relationship, so he was washed with a hot wave of guilt.

“Maybe at first. But not after a while.” He closed his eyes, picturing her torn face as she spoke told him those terrible things on Sunday night.

“She thinks she’s just going to be a trophy to me, but she’s wrong. ”

“What does she mean by a trophy?”

“Like with her ex-husband. Someone who only wants to have her, no matter what she needs. Someone who tries to make her into something she doesn’t want to be.

Someone who will make her dependent. But that’s not what I want to do.

I know there’s so much more to her than how pretty she is. I know there’s so much in her to love.”

“What exactly?”

He was so tired and torn up that he didn’t hesitate to talk so personally, the way he normally would have.

“Damn, I don’t know. She’s brave and independent and she works so hard.

She could have easily gone along, taking the easy route, but she just won’t do it.

She’s really generous and there’s a sweetness to her that nothing can touch.

I know it seems like she’s had a pretty easy life, but she really hasn’t—and she isn’t bitter about it at all.

She’s always honest and up front. She’s not afraid to admit her mistakes and say she’s sorry for them.

She’s…” He slumped in his seat, the long ramble making him feel even worse, since it just proved how much he’d lost.

“So if you feel that way about her—and I can see that you really do—why doesn’t she know it?”

“I don’t know. I tried to tell her. She won’t listen to me.”

His mother didn’t say anything. The silence lasted so long that Rob finally looked up to see what she was doing.

She was looking at him in that way she’d had since he was a child. Just patiently waiting until he admitted what he should have admitted before.

And he knew the answer then, just as he had when he was ten years old and accidentally broken a window with his baseball.

“You think it’s my fault,” he muttered at last.

His mother shook her head. “I’m sure it’s both of you.

But you can’t change her decisions or her actions.

You can only change yours. And it sounds to me like that sweet, brave heart across the street is always going to think she’s just a trophy to you until you prove to her that she’s not.

Until you prove to her that you trust her and need her and are willing to risk pain and humiliation if it means you can make her happy. You know what to do.”

Rob swallowed hard, painfully. “She won’t believe me. She’ll think it’s just a gesture.”

“She’ll only think that if it really is nothing but a gesture. You have to do it for real.”

He knew her words were right in a certain way, and he genuinely appreciated her attempt to help. But he couldn’t at the moment imagine how he could ever do what she was implying. It simply didn’t feel part of who he was.

He might want to, but the habits of a lifetime couldn’t be changed overnight.

And sometimes they couldn’t be changed at all.