Chapter 27
Allison
It’s close to midnight when I get home, the house quiet. I move through the bedroom in the dim light from the hall, setting down my bag, kicking off my shoes. My body aches from the day, my head still buzzing with briefs and arguments that won’t shut off.
I get in bed next to a man who has become a stranger. A stranger, but the only man I ever wanted, the only man I’ve been with sexually, the only man I’ve ever kissed. The only relationship I’ve ever had.
The boy who stole my breath with his piercing blue eyes and broad shoulders and wide jaw, his easy smile and timely sense of humor.
The young man with that warmth, that tenderness, that ability to make me think I was all that mattered in that moment, who teased my perfectionism, who tolerated my intensity, who could make any problem seem insignificant with one wrap of his brawny arms around me.
Still, I can’t escape the thought that this is mostly my fault.
Because I was, well, me. When I want something, I am single-minded of focus.
And I made a decision, early on, that I wanted Finley.
I never revisited that decision. I never stopped along the way and asked myself, Is this still what you want?
Does this still make sense? How senseless, how ridiculous it seems in hindsight.
I plowed forward like a freight train to get what I wanted.
And that, I’ve come to realize, is exactly why Finley picked me.
Not because I was the prettiest. Not because I was the sweetest. Not because I was the best in the bedroom or the kitchen.
It was because I’d adored him my whole life.
Because I’d put him on a pedestal. That was exactly what Finley wanted.
He didn’t just want to be loved. He wanted to be worshipped.
He wanted high school forever. I gave that to him.
Until Grayson. That beautiful tiny creature had to be the center of our lives, and Finley had never shared the spotlight with anyone.
It was no longer high school. It was adult time, parenthood, responsibilities, multitasking, keeping your chin barely above water, all hands on deck, all for one and one for all. And one of us was doing far more of the heavy lifting than the other.
That was the first cut, the initial wound, when our son changed our lives. It was a slow bleed from there. Finley never advanced in sales, and my career trajected upward. In his mind, I imagine, our family was mother and son, with some guy tagging along for the ride.
Anger comes and goes. Disappointment passes. But resentment festers. It turns black and ugly and metastasizes. It spreads until it overwhelms other emotions, all reason. It becomes all you feel.
The next morning, I’m up at 5:30 a.m. as usual.
I get on my running gear and text my message-of-the-day to Grayson, this one borrowed from something Luke always says to his players: Everyone must choose one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
I grab a pair of Treasure Island nylon shopping bags from my stack and head out into the bitter cold of early March, complete with a few inches of snow packed down tight.
One block into my walk, my phone buzzes. Grayson. “Hi, squirt,” I say. “Everything good?”
“Yeah, just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Yeah? You know I love hearing yours. Were you out with TJ and Ronnie last night?”
“Ugh, yeah. Basically a bitch fest.”
“How so?”
“Ronnie just had this, like, blowout with his parents,” he says.
“He wants to switch to graphic design and his parents are like, ‘No way, you got into Stern, you’re getting a business degree.’ They just tell him what to do and don’t care what he thinks and won’t listen to him.
And then TJ starts talking about how his parents just party all the time and live off their trust fund and hardly even notice what he does.
Like all they care about is parties and social status and delegate everything else to nannies and drivers. ”
“Uh-oh,” I say. “Should I be worried about what you said?”
“What could I say? That my mom went to, like, every football and baseball game no matter how busy she was, she’s this super-accomplished lawyer but she cooked dinner every night and drove me to practices and helped me with my homework, she was always there, I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge?
I couldn’t say that. I almost felt guilty having a mom like you.
So I was like, ‘Yeah, bro, parents are the worst.’ ”
I smile, feeling a rush of emotion. Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook. Every parent prays that she gets things right more often than wrong.
“What did you decide about spring break?” I ask.
“Um, so you’ll just be swamped at work?”
“Pretty much,” I say. “I can make time to see you, but I can’t take whole days off. We’re just too under the gun. But your father will be free. You guys could do plenty of things.”
“That’d be great,” he says. “I can come home and he can leave for the rest of the day.”
The bluntness knocks something loose inside me.
“Just kidding,” he quickly recovers, realizing how hard the joke landed, a little too bitter, a little too true. My heart tightens; part of me wants to defend Finley out of habit, but the words won’t come.
“I was thinking I’d go to Boston with TJ. A couple other guys are going. His family’s apparently got like this amazing finished basement and we can all shack there.”
I’m still stuck on his earlier comment. We forget, I guess, that our kids have eyes and ears, too.
This is how he’s seen Finley all these years?
Not with resentment, not even with anger, just with a quiet, practical acceptance that his father slipped out of the hard things whenever he could?
I swallow, unsure if it’s painful or a relief to hear it spoken out loud.
“Maybe Boston’s a better idea for spring break, then,” I say. “We’ll see you this summer.”