Chapter 18
LAINA
Monday morning traffic was already stacking up when I pulled into the school drop-off lane. Lucy had her backpack at her feet and was still half asleep.
“Don’t forget you have practice after school.”
“I know.” She unbuckled and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Thanks for driving me. It lets me catch a little more sleep than when Dad dropped me off, plus I get to eat a yummy breakfast first.”
“My pleasure, sweetie.”
She grabbed her backpack and started to get out, then paused with the door open. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too.”
The door shut. I watched her join the stream of kids heading toward the building and breathed a sigh of relief.
The damage between us after the awards night had healed.
She was still dramatic about homework, curfew, and bedtimes, but she was even sweeter than before.
As though the distance had softened her teenage attitude some.
I waited until she disappeared inside before pulling away. The house was empty when I got home since Bennett had left before we did.
I set my keys in the dish by the door and decided this was the perfect time.
The thought had been circling since we got back from New York.
I didn’t think Bennett was lying about Sally not really resembling me, but I was worried there would always be the niggle of doubt in the back of my head that wouldn’t let us truly be happy together.
And there was only one way to quiet it—by seeing the show for myself.
Heading upstairs, I changed back into my soft pajamas and grabbed my favorite throw blanket, in case I needed the comfort.
Then I headed downstairs and set myself up in the living room with a mug of hot tea and a blueberry scone I’d baked yesterday.
The streaming app was already logged in on the family profile where ninety episodes of The Wrong Side of Right sat there waiting.
My thumb hovered over season one.
I had been dragged through the mud over a show I had never watched. It was time to see what had actually been made of the pieces of me. So I pressed play.
The first episode opened with a laugh track, while I pulled the throw tighter around my legs and watched.
Sally appeared in the second scene, already mid-argument with a neighbor about a parking space.
Then a car drove past, playing a pop song with the windows rolled down, and she joined in without hesitation.
It only took a moment for me to realize this was one of the places where Bennett had been inspired by me because Sally sang off-key, just like I did. But that’s where the resemblance ended.
She was truly terrible. She murdered both the lyrics and the melody with complete confidence, eyes closed and her hand on her chest like she was delivering a perfect ballad.
The other characters’ expressions were comical, and the audience laughed on cue.
Then she took a bow when she was done and waited for everyone to compliment her on the impromptu performance, and the laughter got louder.
I sat very still, realizing what was on the screen wasn’t me. It was a cartoon version built for a thirty-second laugh. The woman on the television believed she was extraordinary. I had never once thought that while humming off-key over the sink. And I only sang when I knew the lyrics.
By the time the episode ended, some of the tension had leeched from my shoulders.
It wasn’t as bad as I had expected, so I skipped forward, searching for scenes with Sally.
Some episodes barely featured her. Others put her in the center of the chaos.
I kept looking for pieces of myself in her and only found barely recognizable exaggerations.
I even startled myself by laughing at a scene later in the second season when Sally opened a kitchen cabinet and an entire avalanche of broken appliances tumbled out.
Toasters with frayed cords, a blender missing its blade, and a coffee grinder that only worked if you held it at a precise angle.
They crashed across the floor in a ridiculous pile while she gasped.
“They’re not trash,” she insisted when another character asked why she didn’t just throw them all away, already gathering the pieces to her chest. “They’re just sad. I’m keeping them until they’re ready to feel better. Maybe they’ll work then.”
I hated throwing things away if they might still be useful, but I did not believe my toaster had a soul. I didn’t stage interventions for kitchen electronics. And I did not look at a broken appliance and see a living thing that needed comfort.
Sally did. And the difference was big enough for me to see it easily.
I stared at the frozen frame of her sitting in the middle of the appliance pile, looking devastated and sincere.
The character people had laughed at for years was not me.
Any quirks that were similar to mine had been exaggerated to the point that people who knew me might not have even caught them unless they knew to look.
Heck, I might have even missed some of them, since they were that different.
And seeing it for myself erased that last niggle of doubt.
So I did something I never would have even considered before everything happened since Bennett’s work schedule had been sacrosanct. But the changes he’d been making gave me enough confidence to make my request, even knowing how busy his day was.
Me
I know you have the table read this afternoon, but can you come home first? We need to talk.
The reply came fast enough that he must have had his phone in his hand.
Bennett
On my way. Be there in twenty.
I stared at the screen for a moment, then set the phone down and went upstairs.
In the guest room, I changed out of my pajamas into soft jeans and a sweater that dropped off one shoulder. I brushed my hair out, put on a little mascara, and a tinted balm.
While I fixed the part in my hair, I started humming without thinking. The song from the episode was still stuck in my head, and I sang through a full verse off-key without being the tiniest bit self-conscious.
I was just me. Singing badly because I felt like it. And when I realized it, I stopped and looked at my reflection.
The woman in the mirror still had tired eyes, but the tightness around them for a month was gone. And for the first time in just as long, I was looking forward to seeing my husband. To talking with him now that my last doubt had been answered.
I went back downstairs and heard the garage door a few minutes later. Bennett stopped in the kitchen doorway when he saw me already waiting. His sleeves were rolled up, and there was a tightness around his eyes. “You okay?”
“I watched the show.”
He braced, waiting for my reaction.
“I started at the beginning before skipping around. I watched Sally sing. Saw the appliances fall out of the cabinet. I looked for myself in her.”
His hands clenched at his sides, but he didn’t say anything. Giving me the space I needed to finish telling him what I’d realized, when before he would’ve rushed in to explain things away. Another positive change that came from the pain he caused.
“I needed to see it for myself. That she’s not me. And I did.” I flashed him a shaky smile. “The character you created was so exaggerated that the woman on the screen doesn’t feel like me at all.”
Some of the tension eased from his shoulders, and his hands flattened against his hips. “Then I’m glad you watched it.”
“I was always going to have that last little doubt until I looked,” I explained. “Now I have.”
“And?”
There was a wealth of hope in that one word.
“And I think I’m ready to stop living in the guest room.” As he took two quick steps toward me, I added, “I’m not saying everything is fixed and I’m all the way back to where we were. But I think we’re ready to get to an even better place now.”
He closed the remaining distance between us. “I’ll take whatever you’re ready to give.”
“Good.” I held his gaze. “Because there is one thing that has to be nonnegotiable going forward.”
“Name it.”
“No secrets. You don’t get to decide that something is harmless enough not to mention. You don’t get to blindside me ever again.”
“I won’t.” The words were immediate but filled with certainty. “Never again.”
“Okay then. I’ll trust you to keep your word.”
He lifted a hand, then went to drop it to his side again, but I closed the last inch myself and pressed his palm against my cheek. His smile was blinding and reminded me of the young man I fell in love with so many years ago.
“I will never give you reason to doubt me again.”
Judging by the determined gleam in his eyes, I knew how much he meant it, which washed away the tiniest threads of remaining doubt. I finally believed we were going to make it, and I didn’t think I could be happier until he pulled me close and captured my mouth in a deep kiss.