Chapter 18
Ellary
The last few days have been strange.
Jackson is still going to his therapy appointments. I know because he comes to the coffee shop before to order a coffee, and sometimes he looks at me.
That’s the source of the strangeness.
Not the looking, or him being there, or even that he is continuing with therapy much longer than I thought he would be capable of. It’s the way he looks at me.
And I know he actually is going to therapy because I broke down when my curiosity couldn’t take it anymore, and I called his parents and asked.
The therapist is an acquaintance of his boss, and he recommended her.
It didn’t take much to type Lynn Wilkes’ name into the internet search engine, and up popped her address, which is two buildings over from the coffee shop. I keep wanting to ask Jackson what they talk about, but it has nothing to do with me. I shouldn’t be thinking of Jackson at all.
Yet I do think of him.
Often.
My date didn’t work out with the handsome doctor, and my divorce has stalled because I haven’t been making child support arrangements with Jackson. To do that, I would need to tell Jackson he’s going to be a father.
The six-month wait before a judge will finalize a divorce seemed so cruel to me at first. When your relationship breaks down, why would anyone force you to deal with the other person for six whole months? Just let the relationship die already, I wanted to scream.
And then I thought about it. I really thought about it.
Now I get it.
As much as I wanted to separate myself from Jackson as easily as I pulled my ring off my finger and dropped it on his office carpet, it’s not just about him or me anymore.
It’s about the child growing inside me. About the judge knowing that we are both putting the child's needs first. We have to get used to dealing with each other, planning, and figuring out what the future will look like as two separate people rather than as husband and wife.
It’s about working on it for six months because if we can’t do that, then how can we parent a child together while focused on hating each other?
I nearly told Jackson yesterday.
He was at the counter, picking up his latte. I was hanging out near the glass cabinets for the cakes and pastries, hoping it was doing a good job of hiding my increasingly pregnant belly.
He looked at me and smiled slightly. He had his hand wrapped around his paper cup, and his wedding ring glinted at me.
I’d opened my mouth to say he’s going to be a father.
He hesitated, as if he’d known what I was about to say.
Then the bell over the door chimed; a woman with a screaming baby came in, wrestling with her stroller and a bulging purse which was dragging her arm down.
And the moment had snapped.
I looked away, and the next time I lifted my head, he was helping the woman to a table with her stroller, and then he was just… gone.
And ever since then, I find myself sitting in the kitchen, my cell phone on the dining table, its screen lit with his name on it. All I needed to do was hit dial, but I haven’t.
I still haven’t set foot in the spare bedroom or bought a single thing for the baby growing inside me. Lila didn’t even offer to come with me to my appointment today, which isn’t like her. She usually argues with me to take someone.
“It doesn’t have to be me,” she tells me. “Take Mom or Dad, or one of your friends.”
But I’ve fought her on it every time, wanting to do it on my own. I guess to prove I can, and that I don’t need anyone to sit by me and hold my hand, though that’s exactly what I want.
Early, because I’m forever terrified I’ll be late, and the doctor won’t be able to see me for another two months—not sure why that’s a fear rattling around in my head—I cut the engine, grab my purse, and climb out of my car.
I consider leaving my sweater since it’s a mild day, then stuff it into my purse just in case. I’m hot, but waiting rooms always involve being blasted with extra-cold AC, usually right over my head.
As I head across the hospital parking lot toward my doctor’s clinic, a car door slams. Footsteps head my way, and then…
“Ellie?”
Jackson.
I slam to a stop and consider using my sweater to cover my belly. Then I realize how stupid that is. Am I intending to hide this pregnancy from Jackson until I’m holding a screaming baby in my arms?
I turn. “Jackson.”
His eyes drop.
I’m in a thin T-shirt and a maxi skirt with flat sandals. My hair hangs in a braid down my back. There’s no concealing this bump from him.
Tense, I watch him closely, waiting for his rage to erupt at having kept my pregnancy from him when I know how much he wants to be a father.
His blue gaze slides back to meet mine, and amusement fills them as he says dryly, “I’d ask if you had a bigger lunch than usual, but I’ve learned from Wade’s wife how bad of an idea it is to joke about a pregnant woman’s belly.”
My eyes widen. At his joke and his lack of surprise, which can only mean…
“You knew,” I whisper.
With a nod, he sticks both hands in his pockets. “I saw you at the grocery store a few weeks ago.”
“Weeks! But you didn’t…” My voice tails off.
“Say anything?”
I shake my head.
“You were coming to tell me that day in the office, weren’t you?” His voice is very quiet, his eyes serious.
I nod. “I got the blood test results back from the doctor. That’s why I was calling you. I hadn’t wanted to believe the pregnancy tests were right.”
“And instead, you walk in on your husband cheating.”
This is the first time we’ve talked without me trying to hide my belly or wanting to run away. It’s still painful, still hurts, but something inside me relaxes a little and the ball of tension inside me slowly begins to unravel.
Keeping secrets takes a toll on you, more of one than I thought this one would have.
“How did you know about this appointment?” I ask.
“Your sister told me.”
I shake my head. “My sister?”
His expression is sheepish. “I went to her for advice.”
I scrunch my nose. “Advice about what?”
He dips his head, eyes not quite meeting mine as he admits. “I saw you on a date. And, uh, I might have thought about punching him in the face.”
I suck in a breath to shout at him.
He speaks in a rush as if he knows I’m angry and might only get one chance to say what he needs to say. “But I told myself if he made you happy, then he doesn’t deserve a punch on the nose. So what if he’s a doctor and puppies and kittens immediately love him?”
Puppies and kittens? What do they have to do with anything?
I stare at him, incredulous. “Are you drunk?”
He lets out a shaky laugh. “Not drunk. Just… stupid. Anyway, I didn’t punch him in the nose.
I liked him. He said you didn’t kiss, and I went home, thought long and hard about what I should do, and decided to risk death at one of your sister’s chef knives.
I asked her if she knew if I still had even a tiny crumb of a chance of winning you back. ”
He was brave to go to my sister. Lila would absolutely not hesitate to kill him, except I told her not to hurt him. I don’t like violence, and Lila knows it.
“What did my sister say?” I say nothing about his comment about winning me back. I’m not ready to talk about that part yet.
“That I was an idiot. That she had worked too hard at culinary school to go to jail for killing me.” He takes a breath and releases it as I swallow my laugh at my sister’s threat.
“There were a lot of other threats and pacing, and she was getting dangerously close to the knives in her kitchen. Then she got all her anger out of her system and said you were pregnant, and that even though I was a dick and you were determined to do this on your own, you shouldn’t have to. So that’s why I’m here.”
I stare at him, absorbing all his words, and most of all, that Lila would tell him about this appointment. I could see my mom doing it, but not Lila.
“This is about what you need, Ellie. I want to be there for you and the baby. Whatever you need and want, and it’s in my power to get it for you, it’s yours. I won’t fight you on the divorce. The house is yours. Alimony is whatever you need it to be.”
I open my mouth, but he keeps talking.
“I stopped by your attorney’s office and told him that.
He asked me to sign some papers, and I did.
Whatever support you need for the baby is yours.
I’ll sleep in my car outside your house and only come in to change diapers and help with the feeding.
Maybe we can alternate days and nights, so you’re not getting up at night all the time? That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.”
My heart is pounding against my ribs. My lips are dry, so I lick them. His eyes drop, and his gaze turns hungry, but he looks away before it can linger for more than two beats.
“You told my attorney about the baby?”
He looks surprised by my question. “Uh… yeah. Why?”
I shake my head. “Never mind.”
But it matters. It matters a lot. Jackson got our divorce moving again with that visit. He went to my attorney, signed off on co-parenting, agreed to alimony and giving me the house, and everything else my attorney said the judge would need his agreement on to finalize the divorce.
That means the divorce is happening in… three months.
In three months, we will appear before a judge. He will review and likely sign off on everything, even though I haven’t given birth yet.
So why am I not doing excited cartwheels across this parking lot?
Why do I feel sad?
Jackson takes a step back. “You want me to go.”
I sniff, dragging the back of my hand across my watery eyes. “I didn’t say that. Just… hormones, I guess.”
Thank God I have an excuse for these tears.
He glances at the clinic entrance, feet away. “Do you mind if I come with you? I’ll sit in the waiting room and hold your bag while you go in to see the doctor.”