Chapter 11
[Dart]
Trinity didn’t return home from wherever she went until the summer sky was turning dark. By then, I’d scraped off all the old shingles on the roof. Tomorrow, I’ll start rolling out the roofing paper needed before I can lay new shingles. Thankfully, rain is not in the forecast.
Re-roofing the house on my own was a daunting process, but something that needed to be done. While I didn’t want to return to construction work, it felt good to be productive. To accomplish something, even if I was sore from the exertion.
My ribs ache. My head has a low hum of pain in it.
I take a shower in the guest bathroom on the second floor, discovering the showerhead needs to be replaced. The water pressure sucks.
While Trinity was perfectly capable of taking care of certain things on her own—she could tackle replacing a showerhead herself—I’d always been the handyman around here. I took pride in the little touches. The wainscoting panels. The chair rail detail. The tile job in the bathroom.
My hands made these improvements. Our vision was a home, not just a house.
The overall appearance of this place is immaculately clean, minus the sudden explosion of baby apparatus. Trinity made some changes in my absence, and the space feels more feminine, reminding me of her first apartment.
That place was small but cozy. She had all these damn pillows on the couch and affirmations on the wall, and a giant poster that looked like a pussy that she swore were flower petals.
I’d never lived anywhere so nice, other than her parents’ house, which was why I loved to spend the night at her place. She had sturdy coffee mugs, and her silverware matched. Stuff I didn’t give a shit about other than when I was near her.
Eventually, she’d turned this dump of a house into a beautiful home, and I loved this place. Loved every crooked wall and refinished plank of wood on the floor.
But home improvement wasn’t a one-and-done deal, and it was a good metaphor for our marriage.
We changed. The loss of three babies can do that to a couple. We couldn’t just put a fresh coat of paint over old wounds. We couldn’t caulk the cracks in our marriage. We needed to renovate ourselves.
Trin was different, closed off and sad. And I got lost in my head, thinking I wasn’t enough for her. Old comments came back to me, haunting me. I didn’t know how to be enough for her. But I never stopped loving her, wanting her. Wanting what this home represented. Us.
After Trin and I hooked up that first time, there was no turning back for me. I went to Russell Haven, wanting him to know my intentions regarding his daughter.
“I’d like to marry Trinity one day,” I’d openly admitted, cocky while still concerned the man I admired most would see me as not good enough for his girl.
“Son, I’ve known that since she was seventeen.”
I didn’t know how he knew that when I hadn’t known it back then. When I was twenty, and she was too young for me. But Russell always saw something in me I didn’t.
Potential, he’d once said. He said I somehow reminded him of himself. And he knew that potential could tip one way or another.
“Make certain it always leans in the right direction.” He glanced at his daughter when he said it.
He would have been so disappointed in me. The way I’d hurt Trinity. The way I tore us apart.
Now all I wanted was to put us back together again.
Which I could not do if she avoided me by staying out late.
Exiting the guest bathroom in frustration, wearing only a towel and scrubbing at the back of my wet hair, I almost plow into Trinity, hustling down the hallway.
“Dart.” She shrieks like she’d forgotten I was staying here, albeit in the second bedroom. A room intended for guests.
I watch as her gaze lands on my belly. Her eyes blow wide, and she repeats my name on an anguished whisper.
The black and blue marks on my midsection are making their way to a nasty yellowish-green color.
To my surprise, Trinity steps closer. While I’m the one who just showered, I catch a whiff of her sunshine and fresh meadows scent. A fragrance that haunts me.
Her gaze never leaves my waist, and I stand taller, letting her have her fill.
Those brilliant dark eyes soften. Her hand comes forward, fingers shaky, as she reaches for my ribs, then she catches herself just an inch away from making contact with my skin and jerks her hand back, leaving me feeling empty and deprived.
Instead, she wraps her hand around her throat and swallows. “The accident?”
“The accident.” The one that could have taken my life.
Her eyes don’t leave my bare chest, and my heart rate accelerates. I hold my breath as her gaze roams upward to my throat and then straight back down my middle to the line of hair leading south. She might as well have skimmed my flesh with her fingertips because that slow gaze makes my skin pebble.
She clears her throat and glances to the left. “You probably shouldn’t be on the roof.”
I probably shouldn’t. Her brothers could have taken care of that repair, but I want to do it.
“Nah. Don’t you worry about me.” I was terrible at sitting still, which is where racing came in. I loved the speed. Zero to one hundred in a matter of seconds. A sharp curve. A smooth straightaway. I loved the attempt to control something so fast, so reckless.
And it was killing me that I didn’t know how to go slow with Trin. With my wife.
I wasn’t certain it’d sunk in for her yet. We are still married. Even if we felt like separate individuals, we are technically still a couple.
Stepping closer to her, I pinch a section of her hair, sliding my fingers down the short length. The outside of my thumb brushes her cheek.
“You cut your hair. I like it.” My voice is quiet, rough, almost raw. She’s different in so many ways, and yet, she looks exactly the same as the day I opened my eyes to her.
Beautiful.
Back then, she was seventeen and too young for me. She had a bright future ahead of her, and I wasn’t where I needed to be. Yet. But knowing someday I wanted to bask in her sunshine.
“Yeah, well, things have changed,” she states, stepping back. “I’ve changed.”
That step away reminds me of the great divide between us. The length of time I’ve been gone, trying to work on myself while giving her space.
I curl my hand like I can hold onto the briefness of touching her hair. Our gazes click together, and my tongue locks in place. I have so much to say and yet can’t find a single word to begin.
“Trin, I—”
Mirabelle lets out a cry from somewhere on the lower level.
When Trinity pulls her attention from me, she blinks rapidly like she’s been under a spell.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispers, her voice shaky and weak when she glances back at me.
Those dark eyes shift to midnight, and she shuts me out by turning away from me, rushing for the stairs.
I grip the railing that surrounds the stairwell, watching her disappear down the steps, and curse myself.
Patience, you dipstick. Patience.
The list of things to be fixed around here kept growing. The showerhead. The roof.
My wife’s broken heart.