Chapter 9
Jayne
He’s being an ass. That’s the only way to describe how Rhys is behaving.
He left early, as he always does, and he forgot his good luck bandana, which he wears under his surgical cap. I gave it to him when he started med school. It’s soft from a thousand washes.
I pick it up and sigh.
For a while on Friday and even Saturday, it was like it used to be. We laughed. We touched. He looked at me like I was magic. I thought, stupidly, that we’d turned a corner.
But then came Sunday, and as soon as I opened my mouth, he started to accuse me of making him out to be a bad father and husband.
Should he help on weekends when I do everything family-related during the week? Yes.
Does he deserve a break, considering the high stress of his job? Yes.
I don’t begrudge him a hiking trip or when he goes away skiing with Paul and some others. I don’t. Never have. Never will. But he feels guilty, and he decides that I blame him for ignoring his responsibilities at home. I don’t. I haven’t.
But I do feel resentful.
Why does he get time off while I still have to play soccer mom? I don’t say anything even if I think it. Instead of being grateful that I keep my mouth shut, he attacks.
I drive to Camden Memorial, it’s going to add ten minutes to my morning, so why the hell not?
Maybe he’ll feel better knowing I cared enough to drop off his bandana.
Maybe when he comes home, it’ll be back to how it used to be and not this strange war zone we find ourselves in, where I’m afraid I’m going to say something to set him off, and he’s scared to say something because I set him off.
Hell! How did we get here?
We used to not be this couple. We used to talk. We used to communicate. We used to be happy.
I’m about to knock on his door, which is open a crack, when I hear her voice.
Tory Chehade.
That woman is into my husband, and it pisses me off how openly she flirts with him.
Ugh.
I freeze when I hear my name, and I inch closer.
“Jayne used to appreciate me…used to be proud of me.”
My heart stops.
“And now?” the witch asks.
“Now she looks at me like I’m the enemy. I feel like a failure half the time. No matter how much I do, it’s never right. She’s always disappointed. I can’t win.”
He’s talking about us to her. He’s…oh God!
“She sounds like she’s resentful. Like maybe she doesn’t realize how lucky she is.”
Lucky! I’ve been the one holding it all together. For years. For him. For us. And now I’m the ungrateful one. This woman needs to shut the fuck up, I think angrily, tears pricking my eyes. How dare she talk about me? How dare he talk to her about me?
“She says I don’t help enough. That I’m selfish, but she doesn’t get it, does she? I can’t just clock out of this job. I can’t tell a patient dying on the table to hold on while I go pick up my kid from soccer practice.”
I take a step back, closing my eyes, his bandana now clutched in a fist. This is all my nightmares come true—Rhys complaining about me to another woman, one who is interested in him romantically.
“And she still works full-time, right?”
“Yeah.”
He laughs, and it’s a sneer. Ugly. Hurtful.
“She doesn’t need to—not for money. I told her she could stop years ago, but she won’t. Says she loves it. But all it does is make her stressed and angry. It’s like she needs to prove something.”
“I’m so sorry, Rhys.”
“It’s…hell right now at home,” he says.
My heart stops. It’s hell at home? Our home?
“You deserve peace, Rhys. You give so much of yourself to everyone else. It’s not selfish to want a little calm when you come home.”
Oh please! What the fuck does she know about running a house? She’s single and has no kids. I don’t say that to minimize her, but she doesn’t get to minimize me either.
But Tory isn’t my problem, is she? It’s Rhys. He’s my husband. He’s my person.
“I…sometimes I think…”
“What?” she urges.
“That maybe Jayne and I need some time apart.”
My knees buckle.
I can’t hear anymore because there’s a strange buzzing in my ears, you know the kind that stuns you after a bomb explodes?
A tremor starts in my fingers, spreading up my arms.
I step back before I can hear another word. My vision blurs. The hallway feels too bright, too sterile.
I leave the bandana in his inbox, the one hanging by his door.
The drive to work is a blur, the city rushing past in streaks of light and color I can’t name. By the time I step into my office, I’m shaking so hard I have to grip my desk to steady myself.
I collapse into my chair. I still have my coat on. I should remove it. It’s warm in here, but my hands don’t work.
Someone knocks on my door.
“Not now,” I snap, not caring who’s on the other side.
I need a minute.
I need…a minute.
My office is just as I left it on Friday. The sunlight pours through the window like nothing’s changed.
But everything has.
I press my hands to my face. My heart feels like it’s breaking open in slow motion. It’s not loud or cinematic, just…silent and painful.
He thinks I don’t appreciate him. He thinks that I blame him for everything. He thinks I’ve made our home hell for him.
Does he have any idea how small I’ve made myself for him?
I’ve held his life together with both hands. Woke him up for shifts. Cooked meals I didn’t eat because I was too tired. Showed up to galas, smiled through exhaustion, carried the invisible weight of everything he never saw.
And still, somehow, it was never enough.
My sobs come in waves, soundless at first, then full, heaving, ugly.
I press my forehead on my desk, gasping, whispering into the quiet: “I’m so tired.”
It feels like the truth is finally out, not just for him, but for me, too. Now I know something about how he thinks that I can never unknow. Whatever I thought we rebuilt this weekend wasn’t real. It was a reprieve, not a resurrection.
A Band-Aid on an amputation.
I can’t fix this anymore.
Do I even want to?
There’s a knock on my door again.
“I just…need a minute,” I manage to croak out.
But the door opens. I hurriedly brush my tears off. Daniel looks at me with his kind eyes, assesses the damage, then closes the door behind him and locks it.
He crouches in front of me. “What’s wrong?”
My throat burns. I shake my head. I don’t have the words.
He studies me for a beat, his gaze steady, calm. “Jayne, you’re scaring me a little, honey. Did something happen to the kids?”
“No.” My voice cracks. “It’s Rhys.”
“Okay.” He takes my hands in his and looks up at me, waiting.
“I went to the hospital,” I manage finally. “He forgot his bandana. The…his lucky one. And I…” My words dissolve. “I heard him.”
“Heard what, Jayne?”
I swallow.
“With her. That woman. Tory.” My stomach twists around the name. “He was talking about me. About us. Telling her I’m angry all the time, that our home is hell, that maybe we should…separate.”
Daniel lets out a long breath. “Jesus, Jayne.”
“I didn’t stay to hear the rest,” I whisper. “I couldn’t. I left his stupid bandana on his door and walked away.”
He nods.
I sniffle.
He stands and walks to the small bookshelf behind me. He pulls out the box of tissues and sets it on my desk, but he doesn’t say it’ll be okay. He’s too smart for that.
Instead, he sits in the chair across from me. “Sometimes people just say things, Jayne. I’ve seen him with you. He loves you.”
“Does he?” I can’t believe that right now, not when I’m falling apart.
“He does,” Daniel says confidently. “What do you want to do?”
I wipe my tears. “Run.”
“Figured.”
I meet his eyes. “Figured what?”
“You’ve got that look.” He gives me a wan smile. “Like you’re already halfway out the door in your head. Somewhere warm, quiet, and anonymous. Somewhere that doesn’t ask anything of you.”
A weak laugh slips out of me. “Yeah. Just for a little while. No kids. No Rhys. No responsibilities.”
He tilts his head, considering. “That’s not an option.”
My breath catches, halfway between protest and relief. “Why not?”
“Because running doesn’t fix anything.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “It just moves the pain somewhere else.”
“And why is that a bad thing?” I say on a sob.
“Because you love your family, which includes your husband,” he says simply, and fresh tears erupt, streaming down my face.
He doesn’t ask me to calm down or stop crying.
“So, you gotta pick another path, honey.”
I blow my nose. “And what will this path look like?”
“One that’s not built around everyone else’s schedule or needs.”
I look down at my hands, trembling in my lap. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” He extends his hand and tilts my chin up so I look at him. “You’re the toughest and strongest woman I know. You have grit, Jayne Prescott.”
My face crumbles. “I don’t want to be strong.”
“I know.” He comes around the desk and pulls me up. “Have a breakdown today.”
“Yeah?” I sniffle.
He chuckles and pulls me into a hug. “Yeah, honey. Cry your heart out.”
So, in the safety of his embrace, I cry my heart out, pouring out the pain of the past and the agony of my present.