Chapter 23
Caleb’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth. “Okay.”
“I’m not placing blame on anyone, but I feel as though we’ve had a big distance between us for a long time, and I don’t know what to do about it. So, I thought it might be a good opportunity for us to hash it out. Get things out on the table.” She was nervous to hear what he had to say. Did he care about saving their marriage? Was it already over?
He set down his spoon and patted his mouth with the napkin in his lap. “I’ve been a bit absent. I’ll admit.”
“I have too,” she said. “We used to be close…”
“I know.” He looked away, then met her gaze. “I don’t know what to say.”
“How do you feel? About our marriage? About us?”
“I suppose I feel empty…sad.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. She hadn’t expected that. “Why? Can you tell me?”
His jaw clenched. “I think it all goes back to the…baby we lost.”
Her heart lurched. The miscarriage was something she tried not to think about often. It’d happened years ago. It was a part of their shared history, but not something she liked to dwell on. There was nothing that could be done about it. But even hearing the words come from his mouth made tears spring to her eyes. He’d never spoken about their loss before. He’d moved on as though nothing had happened. It’d hurt at the time, but she’d put it behind her.
“My miscarriage?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was devastated.” His eyes glistened with tears.
“I didn’t know that,” she said, holding back a sob. “You didn’t say…”
“I thought if I spoke about it, you’d feel even worse. So I tried to be strong for you.”
“You don’t have to do that. We should talk about these things.”
“And the more time passed, the sadder I felt. We didn’t get pregnant again. And then you said that it was probably for the best, that we weren’t meant to be parents. You laughed about it.” He blinked, and a tear ran down his cheek.
Debbie couldn’t bear to see him cry. She couldn’t recall him ever crying before in thirty years of marriage. Her throat constricted painfully. “I’m sorry. I was trying to be strong for you as well. I didn’t mean it to sound that way — I wanted a baby.”
“You did? Because I thought you were happy we didn’t have one. And I guess I’ve resented you ever since. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t set out to feel that way. It just happened. I tried to forgive you and move on. I worked hard at our relationship, at least for a while. But in recent years, I haven’t had it in me.”
Tears fell down her cheeks. She never imagined that there was so much pain beneath the surface of his indifference. It all made sense now.
She reached for his hand. He squeezed hers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted that baby more than anything else in the world. I was sad too.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I wish you’d said something.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he replied. “And then I got to the point where I thought it wouldn’t make any difference and there was no reason to bring it up.”
She moved to kneel in front of him. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest. She sobbed against his T-shirt.
“Do you think we can get past this?” she asked, looking up at him with tears blurring her vision.
He smiled. “Do you want to? I know I’ve been difficult…”
“I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “I love you more than anything.”
“I love you too, honey. I want to make it work.”
Debbie’s heart swelled. It was everything she’d wanted to hear from him for so long. They shared a pain that’d been so hard to bare neither one of them had faced or processed it the way they should’ve. Instead of turning against one another, they should’ve leaned on each other. But they couldn’t change the past. All they could do was try again. And she was grateful now they’d have that chance.