Chapter 21
Jayne
“You what?” I say slowly. Because truly, Rhys growing an extra head would’ve shocked me less.
Rhys stands in the kitchen doorway, still in his scrubs, hair mussed, the day clinging to him.
“I’m taking a sabbatical for six months,” he repeats, slightly amused. “Starting in a week.”
My pulse kicks up. “A sabbatical? From the hospital?”
“Yes.” He steps closer, hands shoved into his pockets. “Our marriage is more important than my job.”
I blink at him, trying to make sense of it. “And you did this without talking to me first?”
He hesitates. “Yeah. I did.”
My arms cross on instinct. “So, you just decided?”
“I had to,” he says softly. “If I’d come home and said, ‘Hey, Jayne, I’m thinking of stepping away for six months,’ you’d have told me not to.”
He’s not wrong. But still. “And now I’m supposed to be grateful you made a unilateral decision about us?”
“About me,” he corrects. “I made a decision about me so that I can show up for us.”
I stare at him. I can’t decide whether to hug him or shake him. “You’re going to resent me for this.”
“Never.” His eyes soften. “Baby, what I would resent, and it would be directed toward myself, is if you quit your job because we’re in a place in our lives where our kids need us, and I’m an absentee father and husband.”
I turn away, because if I look at him for too long, I’ll lose my footing. “What are you even going to do? Sit around here all day?”
He exhales, leans against the counter. “What were you planning to do, baby?”
I raise my eyes and see the truth in his eyes. He’s doing this. He’s stepping up in the biggest way possible. In a way that I didn’t even think about because there was never going to be a time when Dr. Rhys Prescott would actually stop being a surgeon, even for six months.
“I…was going to…do stuff,” I say lamely.
“I’ll do the same.” He comes up to me and pulls me into his arms. “I’ll be with the kids. I’ll learn to cook more than spaghetti with olive oil. Maybe fix that leaky faucet in the downstairs bathroom and—”
“Please get a plumber to do it,” I cut him off, my heart suddenly so light, it’s flying away from my body.
“Hey, if I can fix a heart, I can fix a faucet,” he says in mock outrage.
“Last time you tried to fix the leaky pipe in the basement, we needed to redo the floors down there,” I remind him.
He kisses my nose. “I want to learn how to exist without always being on call, whether I’m officially on it or not.
I want to learn to live a life that’s for my family and myself.
I want to go out on dates with you like we did the other night.
I want to not be so tired every night that I fall asleep exhausted.
I want to not be so exhausted that every time you try to talk to me, I shut you down because I have a six am surgery. ”
I want to believe him. God, I do. But a part of me that’s small and mean and scared whispers that he won’t last a week before he starts itching for the OR again.
He seems to read my thoughts. “You think I can’t do it.”
“I think you’ve been married to your job longer than you’ve been married to me.”
He gives me a long, deliberate look. “Not true in years, but I agree that’s how you feel based on how I’ve been behaving.”
“I just—” I shake my head, words failing me. “What if you hate it here? What if you end up hating me for being the reason you did this?”
He kisses my lips this time. I taste him. Mint and coffee. Familiar. Mine.
Tory Chehade can go fuck herself.
“Jayne, I want to make one thing clear. I didn’t do this for you.” He nuzzles his nose against mine. “I did this for us and for me. For the kids. For my family, whom I love very much. Because I don’t want to wake up one day and realize I built a life I’m not actually living.”
I look up at him, searching for the arrogance, the impatience, the defensiveness that’s defined so much of our marriage lately. It’s not there. There’s only…hope.
“You really did it.”
“Yeah.”
“And there’s no going back?”
He smiles faintly. “Not for a while. And not the way things were.”
The kettle clicks off behind me. I hadn’t even remembered it was on. He lets me go, and I pour the water into a cup where I have a bag of tea waiting.
“You want tea?” I ask.
He nods. “I’d love some.”
So, I take some time to process what he said while I make tea for him. I was so annoyed with him just a few moments ago. He was late again, and even Finn made a remark. I shut it down, and he rolled his eyes, his subtext explicit: You keep defending him.
Rhys taking time off will mean a lot to Finn and to Mikaela, who misses her father, even if she accepts that he’s a doctor and busier than other fathers.
“I don’t know if this is the right thing,” I admit, sliding a cup toward him.
“Me neither.” He wraps his hands around the mug. “But it’s the first thing that feels like it could be.”
I drink some tea, even though it hasn’t brewed long enough and is too hot. “What did Tory say?”
He quirks an eyebrow, amused. “Now, Jayne, you keep bringing her up, and I’m going to think you’re jealous.”
He’s already less stressed. He’s already the man I remember, the one who wasn’t weighed down with pressure from work and at home. Just making the decision has given him, dare I say, a sense of freedom.
“Why should I be jealous of her?” I snap, keeping my lips from twitching, which they want to do.
“Well, she’s blonde and stacked.”
I blow on the hot tea. “How do you know she’s stacked?” I challenge.
“Paul told me,” he retorts. “You know what a hound dog he is.”
This makes me laugh. Paul is a puppy dog if a comparison has to be made.
“Claire came by the other day.” He tilts his head, and his eyes are bright, brighter than I’ve seen in a long time.
I frown. “She texted me, wants to meet for lunch.”
“She psyched me.”
I let out a short laugh. “She did what?”
The edges of his mouth tilt, gentle and unguarded. “She said it was a friendly chat, but she was playing psychologist. Did you know that my identity is tied to me being a surgeon?”
“Yes. And?”
“Wow! That came out quickly. You didn’t even have to think about it.”
“What can I say, I know my husband.”
He runs a finger down my cheek. “It got me thinking, which I guess was her point. I want my identity to be wrapped around more things than being a surgeon, Jayne.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that this sabbatical is as much for me as it is for my family. I have been running all my life to be a better man than my father, and…that Finn lied to you to protect me? Well—”
I set my cup down and walk to him, hug him, not caring that some of the tea from his cup sloshes down. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about how I said it. I didn’t even think.”
I should have. I should have realized that this is where his head would go.
“Hey, it’s okay.” I hear him put his teacup on the counter. He wraps his arms around me. “It needed to be said. I don’t want Finn to feel like I did, like he’s responsible for keeping the peace between us.”
I lay my forehead against his chest. “You’re nothing like your father, Rhys.”
He rubs his chin on my head. “I know. But Finn does feel he has to help our marriage, and that was the last straw. I won’t resent you, Jayne, for doing this. I think I will hate myself if I don’t do it. I promise you, there will be no regrets.”
I lift my eyes to his and study him. Then I grin. “Tell me that when summer camp season starts and you’re running around picking up one kid, dropping another off, and picking up the first kid and….”
He tightens his hold on me. “You don’t scare me, Mrs. Prescott.”
“I’m just warning you.”
“Baby, if I can do things half as well as you’ve been doing them, I think I’m going to be just fine.”
Another compliment. Another wave of pleasure.
I kiss his jaw, feel the stubble of his beard against my lips. “Thank you, Rhys.”
“Don’t say that, baby. Don’t thank me for showing up like I should’ve been doing all along.”
We hold each other for a while, enough for the tea to get cold. He goes upstairs to take a shower, and I heat his dinner. Then, I sit with him while he eats.
It’s like the days before we were married, before we had kids, before our lives became busy and complicated.
That night, when we make love, it feels new because we both now have hope that our marriage won’t just be a bed of compromises where one of us gets bitter and the other drowns in guilt.
“I love you,” he murmurs as we slide into sleep, wrapped in each other.
“I love you, too,” I reply, my heart beating strong and steady.