Chapter 15
[Trinity]
Idon’t know why I was so agitated. Perhaps I was just tired. Another long week has passed since Cassidy and Stone’s arrival, but it still feels a little surreal.
I’m going to be Mirabelle’s mom.
And Dart is still here.
Maybe I’m still a little nervous, waiting for the shoe to drop. Or Dart to hit the gas pedal.
He isn’t working. Just puttering around the house finding odd jobs. He mentioned building a deck out back.
But he hasn’t talked about racing. That probably still hangs in my head like his hats on my coat rack.
He’s probably done with his career in racing. And if he’s done, what’s next for him?
It’s not really my concern and all thoughts vanish when I spin from the counter, full glass of wine in hand, and smack into the man himself.
Red wine splashes everywhere and I drop the glass in my surprise, causing it to shatter on the hardwood in the kitchen.
“Dammit!” I bend down to pick up the larger chunks of glass. Red wine pools beneath it.
“Careful,” Dart says, lowering to his haunches and picking up pieces as well.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I hiss beneath my breath.
“Whoa,” he chuckles, despite my tone. “Trin?”
I lift my head, already shaking it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Tears fill my eyes. Maybe I’m just on emotional overwhelm because I’m going to be Mirabelle’s mom, and Dart is still here.
Even though he’s been helping me at night with Mirabelle, I’m still not sleeping well.
“Baby,” he whispers. “You need a break.”
I don’t. This is what I’ve always wanted. A baby. Mirabelle. But it’s been every second of every day, and most nights, and I just . . . yeah, I think I need a little breathing room.
“I’ve got it,” I snap again, looking downward for glass shards and filling my hand with them.
Dart catches my hand as I reach for another long piece. Then, he cups my other hand holding the broken collection, and he slowly forces me to stand.
He aims my hand with the glass toward the sink and twists it to dump the mess.
“Why would you do that?” The trash is behind me.
I’m also barefoot, and before I know what’s happening, Dart scoops me upward. He’s wearing his boots as he’s been outside, and glass crunches beneath his feet.
He spins toward the hallway.
“You’re going to drag glass everywhere,” I warn, despite my arms wrapping around his neck, holding onto him.
“I’ll clean it up. But you . . . you’re headed for the tub.”
“I can’t take a bath.” I don’t know why I’m protesting. A bath sounds heavenly. That glass of wine was going to be heaven as well.
Mirabelle is finally asleep after a long, cranky day for her.
I’m worried she might be sick, have something I can’t detect.
She sounded a little congested earlier, and I toyed with calling the pediatrician.
Then, I argued with myself that I was overreacting.
I’m a medical professional, so I know how to make a diagnosis.
My gut says it is nothing, but my mom instincts raged to make a call.
I’m a mess.
The red wine stain on my T-shirt and the fact I’m in my ex-not-ex-husband’s arms proves it.
Dart takes me right into the bathroom and sets me down beside the tub.
Then he turns on the hot water and plugs the drain.
He finds a jar of bath salts on the back of the toilet and drops in a hearty amount.
He tests the water, adds some cold, and turns for the door.
He stops just before leaving, lights a candle, and then reaches for the doorknob.
“Try to relax, baby.” He turns off the light and leaves me in only the dim glow of the candle.
With shaky hands, I remove my ruined shirt and fumble off my shorts, knocking my knee on the edge of the tub.
I’m clearly having a moment, but I sink into the growing depth of the perfect temperature water and sigh. Closing my eyes, I inhale the fresh scent that matches my favorite lotion, reminding me of sunshine and fresh meadows.
Within minutes, the tub is full enough, and I stretch my toes, thinking I can turn off the faucet with them. Instead, I kick over my shampoo bottle, and it lands outside the tub with a loud thud on the tile floor.
I lean forward, turn off the faucet, and retrieve the shampoo, when suddenly, there’s a knock at the door.
“Trin? You okay in there? I heard a thud.”
I quickly cover my breasts, as if he can see me through the door.
“Yep. I’m good.” My voice squeaks. I sound guilty of something. However, I’m simply conscious that I’m naked. Very naked, in the bathtub, and my husband is on the other side of the door.
He’s seen me naked thousands of times. He can’t even see me right now, but I’m still sitting here, hands tucked in my armpits, hardly covering my boobs, with my knees pulled upward to shield another part of me.
“Trin?” Through the slim light beneath the door, I can almost see his feet. He’s taken off those boots I worried would drag glass through the house.
“Yeah?” For some reason, I can’t pull my eyes from the door, staring at the outline of his toes in the sliver of light.
Silence continues, before there’s a shift. A sound like he’s knocked his head against the door.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah.” My brows pinch, and I lean on the edge of the tub, crossing my arms on the cool porcelain and resting my chin on my forearm.
“You know, when I left, this is kind of how I thought we’d communicate.” He chuckles softly.
“Through a door?” I lift my head, my voice rising as well, followed by a weak chuckle. What a silly thought.
“No.” The word is muffled, and he repeats it louder, stronger. “No. I thought we’d talk on the phone, like we used to do.”
Those nights before we were married, when I worked late but he asked me to call him when I got home. We’d talk until I was nearly asleep. The phone on my pillow. His voice in my head.
“What would we have talked about?” I lay my cheek on my forearms, wondering what he thinks we’d say after he left.
“Maybe we’d just talk about all that happened.”
“Instead of facing each other.” My voice is tight, almost muffled against my skin, and I don’t think he has heard me because he doesn’t speak for several seconds.
“Just thought it might be easier. Easier not to look into each other’s sad eyes and say some truths.”
He isn’t blaming me for the sadness. He knows why it existed. He never faulted me.
Or did he?
“Like what?” I ask, turning my face back toward the door. Curious, despite my position. Naked. In the tub.
“Like I missed you. Like I loved you no matter what.”
Back then, he’d said the same thing. Baby or not, he was still going to love me. I’d been the one who grew determined, obsessed almost. It had to work.
Just one more time, I begged, although I’d nearly died. I’d had some kind of seizure. A drop in blood pressure.
No more, he said. There had been fear in his voice, although I wasn’t listening at the time. That fear didn’t register until after he left, when I was questioning everything.
Presently, I don’t respond to him, but my heart screams that I missed him, too.
“Like I was sorry it hadn’t worked like we planned,” he continues. “And how I wanted to write us a new plan.”
“By racing,” I answer. Because that had been his proposal. A change of scenery, as if moving away would erase all the pain in my heart and disappointment in my head.
“Well,” he chuckles, but it sounds bitter. “That had been part of the thought.”
But I didn’t race. Racing wasn’t about me. I would have had to give up the home that I loved and the nearness of my family. I didn’t want to move away.
He clears his throat. “But I realize now that racing was more about me. I thought if I reinvented myself, maybe I’d be good enough for you in other ways.”
This has me sitting up, the water sloshing around me.
“Dart.” I choke on his name. “You were never not good enough.”
“But I wasn’t, was I? I didn’t provide you with the one thing I’d promised to give you.”
I pause a second, realizing he thought all his worth was tied up in having a baby.
“You gave me lots of things, Dart.” I glance around the bathroom, full of every feature I wanted. Subway tiles and a soaker tub. The double vanity and pretty tiles.
But he’d also given me so much more than a bathroom.
He’d given me a home. A place we called our own.
A place we worked together to renovate, providing us a space to rejuvenate at the end of a long week and take joy in during the holidays.
He’d also given me his devotion. He was as dedicated to having a baby as I was.
He loved me. I had no doubt about that. He loved me when he was here.
“Did I push you away?” I ask, the question nearly choking me. However, I know the answer before he tells me the truth. I pushed.
“I think we both pulled away, baby.” A soft thud hits the door again, and I imagine him tapping his head against it once more. “And I’m sorry I did that to us.”
“I don’t think you did it alone,” I admit. We both pulled away as he said. When I grew so dissatisfied with myself and turned toward work as a place to hide. A place to feel capable. And he disappeared at the track, racing in circles, chasing I don’t know what.
For the longest time, I worried he had a death wish. It scared me. I didn’t believe he’d really be that reckless, but I was still afraid.
And he’d been afraid when I had the last miscarriage.
And instead of pulling together, we went in opposite directions.
“I’m sorry, too,” I whisper, but I’m not certain he hears me. My throat is suddenly too tight.
I’m sorry because I’ve missed him. I wish I’d been better for him. He needed me as much as I’d needed him, and we simply failed each other.
I have further confirmation that he might not have heard me when he knocks harder on the door, just once, and says, “Well, I better get back to cleaning up.”
“Okay,” I say, a little louder this time.
“I’ve got a baseball game tonight, but—”
“No, go. You should take a break, too.” I don’t say it bitterly. He’s done so much as well. Dinners. Even laundry. And all the handyman jobs.
“I could stay home, though,” he finishes his thought. His voice sounds hopeful.
“No, go see your friends. I’ll be out in a little bit.” The water is already starting to cool. The bath hadn’t been as relaxing as intended, but it had been refreshing in a different way.
We talked, and I had a few things to think about.
Like whether he knew how truly sorry I was for my part in our separation.
Like if he still loved me.