29. CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 29
Rose
I sat with my glass of red wine on the porch with the heater turned on after dinner.
It had been a wonderful Christmas Eve—family and guests mingled well, and Malou was happy. I knew it meant a lot to her that she'd finally been able to host my family for the holidays at her home.
Willow and Jude were like they used to be—fun and friendly. That snark I had seen in Jude for the past years was gone. He was making a genuine effort to understand himself better and rectify his behavior. According to Dr. Mercer, all children go through phases, and Jude's behaving the way he did had nothing to do with how we raised him; rather, with the challenges he was facing as he moved from teenager to adulthood.
"More wine?" I heard Gray's voice and turned to see him with a wine glass and the half-filled bottle of Barolo we'd opened during dinner.
"I'm good." I held up my glass to show him it was still a quarter full.
"May I join you?" he asked, so uncertain of himself that it broke me. My husband was a confident man, and right now, because of me, he wasn't.
"Yes, of course, my…." I stopped myself from calling him my darling Gray . We weren't there yet, and I worried that we'd never get there. This was just a reprieve from the loneliness that would follow once Malou was gone, and the kids and Gray went back to their lives. Sure, he'd said he'd be here longer, but I knew my husband—and he was a workaholic. Without something to do, he'd go out of his mind, and then, I feared, he'd resent me, blame me for running away, for him having to chase me to the ass-end of nowhere on Angel Island.
"It's a beautiful night," Gray murmured as he settled on a chair next to me. So close that I could smell his cologne, the one that still excited me after two decades.
I made a sound of assent and wrapped the blanket tighter around me. He seemed comfortable in just jeans and a sweater.
"Gray, do you regret marrying me?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. I’d always been afraid to ask, too scared of the answer. But now, I felt stronger—ready to hear whatever came next.
He faced me. "I married you because I loved you, and you were pregnant. If you hadn't gotten pregnant, we'd have married later on, but we would have. I'm certain of that."
"Even though you were afraid of Mama Rutherford?" I wasn't being malicious or sarcastic; it was genuine curiosity.
"I think it would've been easier if I was older, not still in college but on my own, able to make my own choices." He drank some wine. "I resented you for a while, which was stupid because we made the babies together. It wasn't like you did it on your own. And it was also stupid because I loved our life, our home, our children, and you . But I let this feeling of…disquiet settle and permeate."
"Was it because I wasn’t a good wife?" I hadn’t wanted to hear the answer to this question either. What would he say this time? It had already crushed me once, hearing him admit there was a time when he resented me.
"You were and are the best wife any man could ask for. And the fact that I carried a resentment out of habit is my weakness, my cowardice—it has nothing to do with how amazing you are."
He spoke clearly, calmly, and gently.
"You say these things like you believe them."
"I do." He put a hand on mine. "Rose, you make my life better. You always have. I knew if I'd married one of those Atlanta society missus, I'd have been miserable like all my friends are, like Holden is. Literally, every friend of mine calls you Saint Rose. They think I'm one lucky son of a bitch. They also feel sorry for you to be saddled with a prick like me."
I smiled at that. "Prick?"
"Yeah, babe. I've been that.
"Not always."
"No," he agreed, "but enough that the collapse of our marriage without me even seeing it is my fault."
I couldn't let him carry all the blame. It wasn't fair.
"I never said anything. Never told you how I felt. I…didn't know how to ask for my needs to be met."
"I never gave you a safe space to talk to me," he countered. "I know that."
"Look at us, both of us in therapy and talking like we are," I chuckled, setting my wine glass down. He was still holding my free hand, and I liked it. I didn't want to let him go.
He laughed softly. "I went to see your Dr. Mercer."
"What?"
"She's the one who recommended my therapist to me. She, of course, kept your confidentiality, but she told me something interesting about myself. She said I'd do better with a male therapist because I have an implicit bias against women in professional roles."
I nodded and waited for him to continue.
"You're not surprised." He sighed.
I gave him a wan smile. "It's not overt, but it's there. I don't think you discriminate against women, but…it probably takes a woman more effort to convince you of her abilities than a man."
"That blew through everything I held true. Damn it, Rose, I have a daughter and a wife."
"Well, I don't have a job."
He scoffed. "Please. You've been helping Malou make this B think of this as a little side hobby. But it had never been that. I wanted to help Malou have financial stability and security, and maybe I knew that one day I'd need it, too. Even if I had doubts about Gray helping me if I left him, I never questioned that Malou would. I trusted her more than I did my husband. That sad reality was probably the last nail in the coffin of my marriage.
I was about to brush his compliment off but stopped myself. "I did it to make sure she had money, and that if a day came that I needed it, I'd have it too."
He looked sad and resigned. "You worried that if you left, you'd have nothing and no one but Malou."
"I have nothing and no one but her," I retorted.
I expected him to yell and scream now and tell me how ungrateful I was since he and the kids had all come here to be with me.
"You have me, babe." There he was with the gentle again. "You have our children. Hell, you have Mike. You're not alone. I'd never ever let you struggle for money. Never ."
"I keep expecting you to get angry with me but you don't," I admitted.
"I made a promise to myself to not raise my voice while I am here with you; because that just fucks up my intentions." He raised his hand and stroked my cheek. "I'm trying to woo my wife back. I'm on my knees for you, babe. I'm not gonna fuck this up."
"I don't want you to become someone else," I squeaked out.
"I'm becoming a better version of myself. And that's straight from the mouths of therapists."
I laughed. He could still do this, inject our lives with humor even now when I feared we were too broken to be ever fixed again.
"This man, the man who cracks jokes and spends time with me, disappeared a few years ago, Gray." Since he was making such an effort to be honest with me, I had to do the same.
"I know." He leaned down and kissed my cheek. "You have the silkiest fucking skin. Do you know that I get so hard around you that it hurts?"
I felt heat rise through me.
"I want you all the time. That's not lust, Rose, that's love. Not after all these years. You're the most attractive woman to me and—"
"Why did you leave me alone at all the work parties you dragged me to? You'd just abandon me to be with that Aimee woman." The words and the pain poured out of me.
"I didn't even know I was doing that until Holden and Justin pointed it out to me. Yes, Rose, I am that fucking blind and stupid." He kept touching me, a stroke on my cheek, a hand on my shoulder, or on my hand like he couldn't stop, like he didn’t want to let me go. "I did discover that Aimee thought that there was something goin' on between us but admitted it wasn't because I gave her any such indication."
"Then why would she think that?" I mused.
"She said I was a decent man and wouldn't cheat on my wife, so once my wife left, she thought I'd be with her."
"That's a bit fanciful, ain't it?" Aimee had always seemed so level-headed that this was a surprise.
"Tell me about it. Even before I decided to take a leave of absence, I knew I had to do something about Aimee. She was also tellin' everyone that we were goin' to be together. I have no clue what's wrong with her—but it ain't my problem and somethin' I don't want to be dealin' with."
I sighed then. "My therapist asked me why I didn't just tell you that you were leaving me alone at these events, and I didn't like it." I paused for a long while. "I told her I was scared you'd tell me that you didn't want to spend time with me."
"Fuck, Rose," he groaned. "I love spending time with you. We always have fun. You make it all so much fun. The thing is, as my father started to fall ill, my need to show him how much better I was than him before he died drove me. After he died, I couldn't stop. I wanted more projects, more prestige…just more . And then you left, and I realized that none of that mattered. I just wanted you ."
"So, you didn't realize my value until I left you?" I asked. "If I’d known, I would’ve walked away years ago?"
He laughed, stroking my hair. "I can't live without you. I may have worked all the time, but the truth is knowing you were waiting for me, holding your arms out, calling me my darling Gray —that was my sanctuary. You were and are my safe space—so much so that I was selfish and didn't want to understand your challenges. I wanted your calm and your quiet. Not your concerns and worries."
He was laying himself bare—telling me things that did not put him in a good light. For a man with as much ego as Gray, I could imagine this wasn't easy. I said as much to him.
"The hard part isn't telling you, babe. The hard part was seeing myself, acknowledging my blind spots. I have no pride. No ego
. None of that when it's you. You are my safe space. I can be with you. That's always been true. You accepted me the way I was. You're the only person who knows me and loves me regardless of my ugliness."
I smacked his hand. "There's nothing ugly about you."
"Yes, there is, Rose. I've been a money-hungry, entitled son of a bitch—so entitled that I never bothered to meet your best friend 'cause she was from your past when you were poor."
I had suspected as much, but him saying it and yet seeing him carry Malou, hire a nurse for her, take care of her—made it clear that he also knew how to respect people for who they were and not where they came from.
"I was only gone four weeks," I teased, wanting to lighten the mood, "You've changed a lot."
"So have you." He gave it right back to me. "You never swore and never yelled at me. Now, you seem to be doing both. I like it. I like that you're speaking your truth. I need to hear it. I want to know it."
He cupped my cheek, and I leaned into his touch.
"Give us another chance, Rose," he pleaded. "Please. I'll do better; be the best husband you could imagine."
I wanted to say yes. Everything inside me was geared to accept Gray. My love was fathomless, deep.
"I'm not ready," I whispered truthfully.
My words hurt him; that was obvious, but he was still smiling. "That wasn't a no . I'll take that as a maybe ."
"Yes," I agreed. It was a maybe with a strong propensity toward yes .
"I'm here for you . But I'm also here for us . I have a lot of regrets and—"
"Let's live forward," I cut him off. "We both can apologize or accuse or…whatever until the cows come home. But I want to move forward. I told this to Jude, and I'm tellin' you now. Let's look to the future, yeah?"
"Can you do that after all that I put you through?"
I put my hand on his cheek and spoke from my heart, "Yes, I think I can. But it's goin' to take time. Can you be patient?"
"Yes, Rose, I can," he promised.