Twenty-One Geny
Grace makes herself scarce the rest of the day. I feel like an idiot. We were getting along so well, and I had to ruin it with my stupid comment. I’m usually better about not letting things like that slip. I don’t know what got into me.
I put Carter to bed at eight thirty. Grace peeks her head into the room to tell me she’s going out.
“What time will you be home?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Late. I can crash at Mom and Dad’s if it’s too late so I don’t wake anyone up. I know it’s a work and school night.”
I hate the way she talks about their house as though they’re still there. I don’t know how else to refer to it, but it rubs me wrong.
“No, that’s okay. You won’t wake anyone up. I’d feel better if you just came back home.”
She looks at me without responding for a second and I don’t know what I said wrong. But then she nods. “Okay. Night, Carter. Sweet dreams.”
“Goodnight.” He yawns through his words.
And then she’s gone.
I help Jack with a college application he’s working on in the kitchen on his laptop.
“Where’d Aunt Grace go?” he asks, his eyes still on the screen.
“Out for the night. Probably seeing friends she hasn’t seen in a while.”
“Why didn’t you go with her?”
I shrug. I wasn’t invited, for one. But I don’t say that. “I have work in the morning. And I have to get you kids settled and into bed. And we have separate lives, you know? We don’t have to be tied at the hip.”
That’s what I tell Jack, but it’s myself I’m trying to convince. I know that.
“I’m not a kid anymore, Mom,” he says.
“I know that.” I sigh.
He doesn’t say anything and neither do I. I know I still treat him like a kid sometimes. It’s hard not to. It’s hard to let go.
“Go jump in the shower before bed,” I say. “I love you.”
“Love you,” he says before disappearing down the hall.
I stay sitting at the kitchen table, unsure what to do with myself. As though I haven’t lived the same life for the last dozen years. Grace has been here for three days, and I already don’t know what to do with myself when she’s not around. It irritates me. Maybe more than it should.
I can hear the TV playing in the living room and decide to spend some time with Wyatt instead of going straight to bed like I usually do.
He’s scrolling through his phone when I come into the room.
He hears the creak of the floorboard under my feet and quickly locks the screen and drops the device onto his lap.
“Hey. I didn’t know you were still up.”
I try to ignore the niggling feeling in my gut that tells me he was looking at something he doesn’t want me to see. I haven’t felt this insecure since my teens and it’s driving me insane.
I move to sit beside him. “What are you watching?”
He adjusts to make room for me. “Ah, nothing really. Golf videos. You can change it if you want.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
He doesn’t respond, just turns his attention to the TV.
I feel antsy and can’t stop fidgeting. When did we become this boring couple?
Weren’t we passionate and on fire once? We were.
But only when we were hiding from Grace.
It was exciting because it was wrong. And then it ended, didn’t it?
He ended things and then Grace washed away, and I was pregnant, and Wyatt stuck by me because he felt it was the right thing to do.
If I’m being completely honest with myself, the only time things were good between us was when we were sneaking around in dark parking lots and taverns out of town.
“What’s wrong?”
I look over at Wyatt, surprised. “What? Nothing.”
“You’re crying.” He leans toward me and puts his hand on my back.
I wipe my eyes. I hadn’t realized I was crying.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m okay.”
“You’re clearly not. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it your dad?”
“No,” I say. And it’s not. But as soon as he mentions my dad, a fresh wave of loss hits me out of nowhere.
I can’t call him or go over to his house when I need to get away. He’s not here to make me a grilled cheese sandwich and chicken noodle soup because I hate tomato soup. He was always a good dad, but he really stepped up when Mom died.
“Then what is it?” Wyatt asks.
I take a breath and then it spills out. “I’m worried we’re not in love and now that Grace is back you’re going to regret making a life with me and want to be with her again.”
He sits back like he’s been slapped. The tears come full force now. He scoots closer to me and pulls me into his chest.
“What are you talking about, Gen? I love you and I love our life together. Grace and I were in love when we were kids. We don’t even know each other now.”
I mumble into his shirt. “But you wanted to be with her and not me and then she was gone and you didn’t have a choice.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders and gently pushes me away so he can look at me. I hang my head, ashamed that I’m sharing my innermost insecurities.
“I had a choice. Every day, I have a choice. And every day I choose you and our family.”
“But we barely spend time together. You sleep on the couch. I can tell you don’t want to be here.”
He shakes his head. “Things aren’t perfect between us. We both know that. But I haven’t left. I’m still trying.”
“And now that Grace is back, maybe you don’t want to keep trying. Maybe you feel like you’ve tried enough.” My voice is louder than I mean it to be, but it’s all coming out and I feel unable to stop it or slow it down.
“What are you talking about? You’re acting like I did something wrong and mad at me for shit that’s happening in your head.”
“It’s not in my head!”
“It’s one hundred percent in your head, Geny.
I haven’t done anything wrong. I came upstairs to sleep when you asked me to.
I haven’t even had a real conversation with Grace even though she was my best friend and I lost her too.
And now she’s back and I haven’t so much as hugged her because I can see you watching every small interaction between us. ”
His words are a shot to my gut. Because they’re true. Because I hate them. Because part of me hates him.
“If you want to talk to her and hug her, do it. Don’t let me stop you.”
“Genevieve.”
I stand and walk away. He doesn’t call after me. He doesn’t come after me. He just lets me go, and I wonder if this is the start of the end. If I’m driving him away before he can make the choice to leave. I never liked letting him choose. He always chooses wrong.