Chapter 16 #2
seventeen years, used my income and savings to put himself through medical school. Then he dumped me and told me our divorce
was entirely my fault, because I was such a terrible, cold wife.”
Karl’s jaw ticked. With uncharacteristic patience, though, he waited for her to say more.
“But I . . .” Her chest hurt, and she forced herself to inhale slowly and blow out the breath to the count of four. “I didn’t
tell you the very last thing he said. I didn’t tell anyone.”
Still no verbal response from Karl. But he stretched out his legs until they bracketed hers, his face hard as flint.
“He stood there in the kitchen of the home we shared, the home I’d offered him freely for over a decade, and informed me he
wanted children. That much you know. Then he told me . . .” She fumbled for the bottle of water Karl had packed. Took a swig
to moisten a throat as parched as a sun-baked desert. “Even if I were willing to get pregnant, it didn’t matter, because he
didn’t want kids from me. He wanted them from someone younger. Someone more likely to bear him healthy children. Someone who’d make a warmer, better
mom.”
Karl was literally vibrating with anger. “That’s bullshit, Molly. He—”
“I thought about it, you know,” she interrupted, because if she didn’t say it now, it would never get said.
“When he told me he needed”—her fingers crooked—“‘a real family,’ I honestly considered tossing aside everything I’d always planned for myself, the future I’d always wanted, to give him what he wanted. To keep him with me.”
The impulse probably wouldn’t have survived the hour, but she’d never know for sure. In that moment, she’d been frantic. Desperate
to save her marriage at any and all costs, despite her surface calm.
“Then . . .” Her laughter knifed upward from her chest, drawing blood the whole way. “Then I found out he wouldn’t even accept that kind of sacrifice. Not from me, anyway. Problem solved, right?”
He took her hand. Squeezed it tight. “I’m so sorry, Molly. So goddamn sorry.”
“All of it hurt way more than I could’ve imagined. His leaving. Everything he said. The eventual divorce.” Her eyes were wet
again. Not from yawning this time. “And now, the way he keeps endlessly hassling me to give him more, give him my own grandparents’ freaking home, when I’ve already given him far too much—that hurts too.”
His notebook pressed against one thigh, Karl jotted something to himself with his free hand, using large, slashing letters.
Two particular words stood out clearly: FUCKING DICK.
“Every time he calls or texts or emails, it’s a reminder of how stupid I was. For trusting him. For not seeing the red flags.”
She blotted away unshed tears with her shirt’s wrist cuff. “I knew better, Karl. I truly did. I should’ve seen who and what
he was before we even got married. And the fact that I married him anyway, that I didn’t leave him after getting a cake in
the face, that I didn’t divorce him long, long before he left me? It doesn’t say good things about my judgment or my instincts.”
Karl’s fingers tightened around hers, and his note-taking halted.
Enough. Time to bring this sad story of her own foolishness to a close. “I know my lack of faith bothers you. Here’s the thing, though: I may not trust other people very much these days, but I trust myself even less. Hopefully that’s some consolation for you, Karl.”
She exhaled shakily, then clamped her mouth shut.
Karl scrawled one last note, then tossed aside his pen. “All done?”
Her chin dipped in silent agreement.
“Then it’s my turn. I’ll retell that story.” He looked up from his notepad at last. And to her shock, he glared at her. “With
better goddamn accuracy, Dearborn.”
His aggressive tone startled her so much, the urge to cry entirely vanished.
Then Karl “Never Met a Sentence Fragment He Didn’t Love” Dean gave an actual speech. It was short, but it featured actual
complete sentences, which included—in a stunning turn of events—actual verbs and pronouns.
“Based on my notes and what you told me last week . . .” After one final, fulminating scowl in Molly’s direction, Karl’s attention
returned to his paper. “You had doubts about that asshole from the beginning. You were together a long time before he convinced
you to get hitched. You almost left him before your reception even finished.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Your
instincts are fine, Dearborn. You just need to listen to them. All your divorce proves? Your ex is a dick, and you should
trust yourself more, not less. End of fucking story.”
And that, it seemed, was that. His entire response to the revelations she’d dredged from the murky depths of her repressed
psyche, contained in a single aggrieved tirade aimed at her.
What the hell kind of exercise was this?
Flabbergasted, she flung her hands wide. “Why are you so angry at me?”
“Because you’re being an asshole to yourself for no damn reason, and it makes me fucking furious.” He flung the notepad down on the quilt, brows beetled, cheekbones streaked with livid color. “What your husband did to
you was some fucked-up bullshit, but what you just told me is bullshit too, Dearborn. How dare you blame yourself for trusting your damn husband? For loving a man you met when you were basically still a kid? For wanting
to believe the best of him? For being loyal and not giving up on your fucking marriage?”
The genuine outrage and absolute disbelief in Karl’s every overly loud syllable landed like a punch. His accusing words rang
in her ears, echoed in her brain, and somehow—once she fully comprehended everything he’d semi-bellowed—cracked the defensive
shell she’d kept around herself for longer than she could remember.
Maybe his sheer volume had rattled something loose inside her. Maybe she’d created an opening for him by telling him the full
story of her divorce, with all the ugliest bits intact. Or maybe no one had believed in her so completely since she and her
mom moved to California, and having that kind of unstinting, stout support back again—if only for a gut-wrenchingly brief
time—popped her protective bubble.
Either way, his words seemed to enter her bloodstream in a heartbeat, spreading warmth through her veins.
Like the world’s best, angriest, most profane drug, they immediately salved the rawest edges of her hurt and neutralized some of the corrosive shame that dissolved her confidence every time she thought about Rob and her marriage.
She replayed Karl’s speech in her head, and her spine straightened.
He was right. Of course he was right.
Why should she blame herself for the careless selfishness of a man who’d promised to love and honor her for an entire lifetime?
Unlike Rob, she’d operated in good faith, always, and she’d already given him the fruits of almost two decades of her labor.
Why the hell was she giving up her self-respect to him too, like the cherry atop a shit sundae?
Fuck that.
No, really. Fuck that. It was past time to stop flagellating herself.
She was Molly goddamn Dearborn. No asshole narcissist in scrubs could make her small, scared, shamed, or powerless.
And then, for the first time in a long, long while, she wasn’t simply feigning calm. She was calm. And maybe the effects of this exercise wouldn’t last longer than the day’s waning sunlight, but the respite from turmoil
felt really, really good.
At some point, she’d closed her eyes in thought. Now she opened them. Smiled at Karl. Continued listening to his rant-in-progress.
“—but if my heart’s a Cadbury Egg, Dearborn, yours is a chocolate lava cake surrounded by lots of ice cream.” Karl was standing
now. Pacing. Blustering, pointing accusingly at her, and occasionally glowering at wildlife. “Cool on the outside. Warm and
gooey inside, where no one can see. And that goo’s not a fault or stupidity or whatever the hell you think it is. It’s a fucking
miracle.”
She contemplated that claim while he paused for breath, then shook her head in disagreement.
“I appreciate the compliment, Karl. Back in the nineties, though, basically every chain restaurant had a chocolate lava cake,” she pointed out. “If each one constituted a miracle, there’d be a lot more Applebee’s cooks up for sainthood.”
He halted. “Ever heard of hyperbole, Dearborn?”
“Never.” Her brow crinkled in feigned confusion. “Is that an energy drink?”
He eyed her balefully. “Haha-fucking-ha. You done being a wiseass?”
“Probably not. It’s one of my greatest talents.” Since he’d abandoned his spot against the trunk, she claimed it for herself.
“But go ahead and tell me your story for the exercise, so I can channel my artistry in a new direction.”
Thank goodness for back support, the savior of the newly middle-aged. Pleased and much more comfortable, she sat cross-legged
against the tree and admired how the pink-gold glow of the late afternoon light coaxed fiery glints from Karl’s hair.
Slowly, his scowl faded, and his head tipped as he studied her closely. “You sound different, Dearborn. Less goddamn brittle.
Look different too.”
“I feel different,” she told him honestly. “I can’t say how long it’ll last, but . . . yeah.”
His lips curved in a pleased, irritatingly smug smile. “Shit I said got through to you?”
“At least for the moment.”
“Good,” he declared with feeling, and thumped back onto his butt. “Then let’s get my part of this sharing crap over with.
Grab your notebook and pay attention.”
“You may recall my telling you this before, but . . .” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t take orders from you, Dean. Never have, never will.”
Still, she readied her notebook and pen, because she’d always been an excellent—if occasionally disobedient—student.
“Probably be better off if you did,” he grumbled, then launched into his own tale of woe.