Strength Out Of Weakness…Hebrews 11:34
Jean called me tonight.
I still can’t quite believe that. In the last four years, since the divorce, I don’t think she’s spoken more than ten words to me that she doesn’t absolutely have to, that aren’t related to official business.
Not only that, she called tonight to tell me that Logan showed up at the Mansion again, and I was not, in point of fact, raging mad about it. I mean, I wouldn’t have been after I heard the whole story. I hope. What I meant, though, is that when she first said it, her voice all choked up with emotion, naturally I figured he’d come back for her. Jean, I mean.
I’d assumed I’d hear something like that one day, and for the first six months or a year I expected it at every turn. I was primed for an explosion then. But you can’t stay at the boiling point indefinitely, and after I moved back out to the West Coast and got some distance, I calmed down. Eventually.
At that point, if I’d heard he was back I’d have been angry, hurt. But I still expected it, the way you expect the lock to turn after the door is closed. I didn’t think about it constantly, but I still assumed it would happen. And after a while longer, I figured if I did hear about it, I just wouldn’t care. I’d spent enough time waiting for the other shoe to drop and it was time to move on.
But when I heard Jean stumbling over those first words, when she said his name, I damn well never expected to feel what I did. I wasn’t completely free of all the things I’d expected—it still hurt, it still made me angry, and it was still sort of a relief that at least I wasn’t going to have to wonder any more. But honestly, I was happy for her.
Look, it sounds crazy to me too. Even when I interrupted her to tell her it was all right, that I was glad to hear it, I felt like I was kidding myself. I know how much of an asshole I was during our marriage. I’m not proud of it, and I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out exactly what it was that I couldn’t handle. But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss her, and even though they always say it’s never just one person’s fault, she never did any of the things I thought she did. She always tried.
So I stopped her—I’m not a saint, I really didn’t need to hear all about it—and I told her I was happy for her, that I hoped things would work out for her this time. At which point she started laughing and said, “You never did listen to me, did you?”
So I listened. For about an hour. She kept having to put the phone down and go to check on Rogue and Logan and it took a while to get the whole story straight. Eventually she finished talking about them and then it seemed natural to ask after her own work, and before we knew it we were talking about us. About what went wrong, about what we hadn’t said to each other that we should have and what we had said that we were sorry about. I could hear that she was crying part of the time, although she pretended she wasn’t, and it was hell knowing I was three thousand miles away.
Finally she came back after another brief absence and told me she had to go. Logan was awake and she needed to check on the two of them. But she said she’d call me again, and before she hung up she told me it was really good to talk to me, and then, the last thing, so quick I almost missed it, she said, “Love you.” And then she was gone.
So I’m still sitting here in my office, it’s about three in the morning out here, and I’m thinking. And the main thing I’m thinking is, I was wrong. I was wrong about Jean, and I never really let myself consider that before. It’s always been my job to be right, to be in control, to make sure a decision gets made quickly, because that’s what the leader of a military operation does. It was her job too, and I think neither of us really wanted to give up that role. Part of the problem, undoubtedly—the soldier and the doctor, always was kind of an unholy alliance. And we never dealt with that.
Funny how a divorce, a few years and a few thousand miles will put things in perspective.
I was wrong about Logan too. I went with first impressions and I never really looked back. Kind of funny to realize how much that gives me in common with him. I really think he was wrong about me, too, but it’s going to be up to me to prove that.
And the blame game—it’s always been someone else’s fault. Jean for not ignoring the looks of other men, the Professor for not putting a stop to it and throwing him out, Logan for being an asshole who’d chase any skirt he saw. But—and if you quote me on this, I’ll deny it—he’s not like that, really. I know that now. It’s been five years. He may not be the kind of man I’d necessarily want to go out and have a beer with, but he was always straightforward. If he’d been after Jean, it would have happened by now.
It was the girl he came back for. And thank god for that. I’d have condemned him for that too, once upon a time, but from what Jean told me, from what I finally listened to, it was never that kind of thing. It’s a damn shame, what happened. I haven’t heard much of what’s been going on with the students in the last few years, but I had thought she was doing well.
I suppose I should get over the idea that I know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I wasn’t the only one fooled about Rogue. Marie. Whatever she’s been calling herself. I’d heard about an art show in Chelsea, all sorts of good things about her work. And now this.
It’s been a long time since I was around for the day-to-day issues at the school. I have to say, when I left, it was kind of a relief. I prefer to deal with adults, all things considered, and ‘junior headmaster’ was not a favorite part of my job description. I wish I could say that I think I’d have been aware of what was happening, but unfortunately I don’t really think that’s true. So many of our kids had so much to deal with, and it was hell trying to figure out who we could trust to help them. Jean worked herself half to death trying to be available at all hours, I know that. I should. I used to complain about it enough. I think the more mundane problems tended to get overlooked, anyway, in the midst of all the larger, more universal issues.
That was always a dilemma, running a school and all. Damn, you’d think we’d be better at this by now.
Anyway, Jean didn’t know much about the details. She only knew what had happened last night, when Marie tried to kill herself. And that’s when Logan showed up. Have to hand it to the guy, he does have a sense of timing.
I know the Professor will take this hard. It might be a good idea if I went back for a few days, just to make sure everything’s all right.
Yeah. And if you believe that one, I’ll sell you the bridge I’m going to take on my way from the airport.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
In which we hear from someone else who has been missing in action for quite some time...
Chapter End Notes:
No epistolary brickbats about cul-de-sacs, please. It's all necessary...;)