Chapter 15 That Stinging Rejection in Spring
That Stinging Rejection in Spring
Erin
Matilda was excited to introduce her ginger bear to all the animals at the zoo.
“Princess.” Jeremy bent down. “I don’t think your little bear needs to meet all the animals.”
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “He a pirate. He never see a lion. Matilda teach him!” She turned to her bear, her expression serious. “This one go rar!”
Jeremy sighed, and his dark eyes slid longingly toward the cafe. “I should’ve gotten another iced latte…” His two days in Tasmania were probably the longest he’d spent with her—or either of us, actually—in months. He wasn’t used to the endless toddler energy. “It’s unbearably hot for so far south…”
I resisted rolling my eyes. “I told you to bring a hat. You could grab one from the gift shop.” I nodded at Matilda. “You two could match.”
His lip curled. “I think one Easten walking about wearing a pink trucker cap like a yokel is more than enough.”
“Suit yourself.”
Side by side, Jeremy and I wandered behind Matilda as she marched around the zoo, her pink gumboots crunching along the gravel paths. She had so much confidence. She was certainly handling the separation better than I’d hoped. Not perfect, but for a toddler, she was handling it well.
Mostly.
There had been a few tears when we’d said goodbye to Jeremy after ice cream, and even the ghosts walking the halls of the Wolcott homestead would’ve been rattled by the tantrum she’d thrown at bath time.
She stood in the tub, her arms folded. “Daddy do bubbles!”
“Til,” I said, trying to calm her down, swishing the water around her legs. “The water’s so nice and warm—”
“No warm! Hate warm! Daddy do!”
My sniffled attempts to coax her to sit down failed, but Mim must have heard the wailing because her head popped around the door with a confused look.
“What’s all this hollerin’, eh?” she said.
Matilda stomped her foot, and a spray of water spat out of the tub. “No you, Mim! Daddy!”
“I reckon I might need to sit down here for a bit.” Mim lowered herself to the edge of the tub. “My old bones don’t like gettin’ up and down those stairs anymore.” She took one of the squeaky plastic books from the pile. “I might read one of these while I get my breath back, eh?”
Mim read the first one aloud with no reaction.
By the second, Matilda waded closer and was listening to how the little fish in the book was brave enough to swim all by himself.
Jeremy was forgotten after that. Matilda splashed happily in the bath and even showed Mim how to duck her head underwater without getting scared.
Mim’s hand patted my knee. “You’re doin’ good,” she said. “She’s just testin’ the new limits.”
And she was probably right.
That didn’t mean I’d been able to get to sleep.
Poor Callan. He’d sat up with me until almost one in the morning, letting me spew out my frustration about ex-husbands and divorces and how the whole process was just so unfair.
Cup after cup of tea was put in front of me to bare my soul without judgment. He was a loyal friend.
No, he was my best friend.
My only friend.
But I hated that this was what my life would become.
Every weekend would belong to Jeremy. Even if these two days passed without any dramas, would the next visit?
What would happen once the lawyers and courts really got involved?
Would I be forced to move closer to him?
I’d read too many divorce horror stories online. My problems were only just beginning.
“Did you tell your parents yet?” I asked Jeremy. “About the separation?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. You know what they’re like. They’ll blame you instead of accepting I’m the one at fault. I don’t want that.” The smile he gave me was believably tender. “I’m willing to work for our marriage. No one needs to know about this temporary struggle except us.”
Delusional, and absolutely not temporary, but okay. “I didn’t tell my parents, either,” I said.
“Why’s that?”
I shrugged. “They’re in Europe.”
“That’s not the reason.”
No, it wasn’t.
My parents—as dysfunctional and crazy as they were—were committed to each other.
It was them against the world, no matter what.
They wouldn’t understand separating. Ups, downs, and bumps that crashed them from one failed dream to the next—everything was okay if they were together.
Cole and Lila had a marriage like that, too.
Not everyone was so lucky, I guess.
Jeremy reached out to rest his hand on my back. “Let’s wait to tell them, too. We could try counseling first…like you wanted.”
My eyebrows rose.
He only smiled. “I’m already talking to someone. I think it’s important I work on myself and understand why I did what I did. I thought I was above it because of my profession, but…” He shrugged. “I’m prepared to admit I need help.”
My steps slowed. This was…unexpected.
“Would you consider joining me for a couple’s session?” he asked. “We could work through how you’re feeling…together…”
Frowning, I watched the clomp, clomp, clomp of Matilda marching ahead. Why couldn’t he have agreed to this before?
“I’ll consider it,” I said slowly.
Was there any point, though? What would counseling achieve after he’d already ripped the ground out from under me?
In the days after he’d cheated, talking through the violent swing of my emotions from devastation to rage might’ve healed my heart enough not to glare at him with hatred.
No amount of talking would help me recover my confidence.
Who would want me if my own husband couldn’t stand the sight of me?
The thought of another man stripping off my clothes kicked my pulse into overdrive.
My newfound insecurity was too raw to admit out loud.
My looks were all I had to offer… And now, I didn’t even have that.
“This heat…” Jeremy hummed in annoyance, tugging at the top buttons of his linen shirt. A sliver of his tanned chest and a familiar sprinkle of chest hair peeked out. Unexpected, though, was the delicate gold chain hanging from his neck.
“New bling?” I smirked. “Did your sidepiece buy it for you?”
Jeremy ignored my comment and slipped the chain out, the gold cascading over his hand, my diamond engagement ring and platinum wedding band hanging at the bottom.
“I couldn’t bear to put them in a box or a drawer somewhere,” he said.
“I prefer keeping them close to my heart. That’s the only place that feels… right.”
I pressed my lips together and stared at him, deadpan.
He leaned closer, and into the crook of my neck, he whispered, “I know that under your anger, you still love me, Erin.”
My palm landed flat on his chest, and I pushed him back to a safer distance. “You wish.”
“You do. That’s why I’ll never take off my ring.”
“Never?”
“Never. It’s very special to me. I’ve never taken it off.”
“At tennis?”
He shook his head.
“What about when you were fucking her?”
Jeremy’s eyes bugged wide, and his head snapped in every direction. No one else was nearby, and Matilda was busy introducing her bear to the meerkats. That didn’t stop him from hissing, “Jesus, Erin. We’re at the zoo.”
“Answer the question.”
“This irrational jealousy is beneath you.”
Irrational? I laughed in his face. “Answer the question.”
With his hands on his hips and eyes burning into me, Jeremy exhaled a long breath. “I didn’t take off my wedding ring with her. Okay? Are you happy now?”
My teeth nibbled on my bottom lip. “I…”
I wasn’t sure if that was the answer I wanted to hear.
Would it have hurt less if he’d slipped off his matching platinum band?
Would it be easier to know he’d walked into a hotel room, put his ring on the nightstand, and pretended he was a different man from the one who walked through my front door?
But worse than those confusing thoughts was the next realization I voiced. “She knew you were married,” I said.
Jeremy nodded.
“Oh… Is she?”
“No, she’s not.”
“And it was… just… You said it was only the one night, right?”
Jeremy’s eyes avoided me by watching Matilda dancing her little bear along the meerkat enclosure. “I…” He sighed. “The therapist said I should be completely open with you, but it’s difficult…”
“How many times were you with her?”
“More than once… That night was the first time, but…”
Pain hurtled into my chest and sucked the air right out of my lungs. “You’ve been with her since?”
“I was a man who desperately missed his wife. I rebelled against your rejection in the most hurtful way possible… I understand that now…”
My rejection?
I pressed my palm into my temple and tried to distract myself from the throb by watching Matilda living happily in her magical toddler world.
“That’s not what happened. I never rejected you,” I said, scrambling for solid memories to latch onto. “You… you said I was ugly.”
“I never said that.”
Okay, not in those exact words… “You said you weren’t attracted to me anymore.”
Jeremy shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“I was there—”
His fingers curled gently around my arm.
“And when you started rambling all those poisonous self-doubts in the bathroom, I should’ve spoken up and not let you fill in my silence, but I never said that.
You said that…” He gave a sad shake of his head.
“I should’ve corrected you. I should’ve come to find you after we argued, and maybe we wouldn’t be standing here right now… ”
My mind spun, and my eyes flitted over the clouds for some sense of stability.
Cal, are you looking at the sky right now? Can you see the puff that looks like the lost goat we found wandering over the hill when we were kids?
Somehow, it would feel easier if Callan and I were centered in this world together. Jeremy was lying. I remembered that conversation. Every word. But like so many times I talked to my husband, I felt unsteady, wrong-footed, ten steps behind…
“Erin.” Jeremy’s voice murmured against my neck, and his hand dropped from my arm to palm my waist. “Come into the city with me tonight. I have a suite big enough for the three of us. We’ll take Til out to dinner… Share a wine… We’ll be a family… And after…”
“A-after?”
“I’ll make love to you. We’ll take our time. Enjoy each other. We’ll remember.” His lips pressed to my jaw. “I did the wrong thing and looked for comfort in another woman’s bed when I shouldn’t have, but it was only physical. In my heart, there was never anyone but you.”
Exhausted, I slumped into the familiar comfort of his body pressed against mine.
It would be so easy to move back to Melbourne.
The other doctors’ wives would stare at me with envy at every party because my husband was handsome and so very accomplished.
We’d live a comfortable life where money and a respected place in our community were never a problem.
But…
Courage filled my lungs when I took a deep breath.
I wouldn’t respect myself if I took that path.
Jeremy said there would never be anyone else, but that was a lie. Just like how he lied about it only being one time. He probably thought I’d turn a blind eye. No big deal, right? It was only physical. He might be able to forget the woman he slept with as if she never mattered, but I couldn’t.
I’d moved on.
My marriage ended the night Jeremy cheated the first time.
The righteous anger that fueled those early days in the after wasn’t even there anymore.
Knowing he’d betrayed me since I left felt like a rock hitting shattered glass—there was nothing more to break.
There was no emotion to cling to apart from the distant promise of falling for another man.
And not just any man.
Only one.
Flutters ached low in my belly when I pictured Callan’s blue eyes crinkling in the corners. I’d known him most of my life. And maybe it was too soon to have those sorts of feelings. I didn’t care. I wanted to run headlong down that new road instead of turning back.
“Please, Erin. I promise to only love you,” Jeremy whispered. “I promise.”
He breathed his lies against my neck, so he didn’t see my smile. I matched his wistful tone when I said, “I’d rather love myself.”
Jeremy’s spine stiffened, and his hand dropped off my waist.
“Your lies won’t work on me anymore. I’ll never take you back,” I said. “But I will take every last dollar you have to raise our daughter.” I pulled back to flash him my biggest smile. “I promise.”