Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Gabriel
There had been nothing wrong with the evening.
The babysitter had turned up on time. Penelope and I had arrived at the restaurant within a few minutes of each other.
We’d been seated at a nice table by the window that overlooked the park.
The waiter was friendly when he took our order and the starter had been delicious.
There had been nothing wrong with the evening, but it wasn’t right either.
“How’s work?” Penelope asked.
So far, our conversation had revolved entirely around Bethany.
It was a neutral, common ground that didn’t create any roadblocks or conflicts.
And it didn’t give anything of me away either, not that I’d been consciously holding myself back.
I was trying. I’d promised Autumn I would spend time with Penelope and get to know her again, and I was fulfilling my promise.
Which was why we were at dinner. And why I felt so uncomfortable, I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
“Same old, same old,” I replied. She didn’t need to know that I was planning to resign. “What about you? Are you still writing?”
She shrugged. “I mean, in theory. I just don’t enjoy it like I used to.” Penelope had been a staff writer at a magazine when we split. She’d said she’d been doing freelance ever since.
“You’ve got something else in mind?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said, moving the food around her plate. “I guess it depends on the next . . . however long.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. I obviously want to be around for Bethany. And you . . .” She said it as if it was a sentence she was expecting me to finish off.
“What does that mean?” I took a sip of my wine.
“Just that things are going well. We’ve been out to dinner a few times and Bethany and I are bonding. If things keep going along this route then hopefully . . . you know, it will get even better.”
I finished off my lamb and sat back, watching her.
Things were friendly between us but if I were watching our interaction, I wouldn’t guess that we were married.
Or dating. It wasn’t flirtatious on either side.
Penelope seemed on edge, as if she were going for a job interview, and I felt as if I were going through the motions at a business dinner.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” I asked. I couldn’t stop the images flooding my brain as soon as I’d asked the question. I was with Bethany. And Autumn. And we were sitting out in the garden on chairs that I’d made us.
She shrugged. “I guess, hopefully back with you and Bethany. As a family.”
I didn’t react, not because I didn’t see that picture at all, but because we’d been talking about her career. “What do you see yourself doing professionally?”
“I really want to make it up to you and Bethany. I hope you let me do that.”
“But that’s not a job, Penelope.”
“But being a full-time mother is,” she replied. “And a wife. That’s what I want to focus on. If you’ll let me.”
When I was a kid, there was a river we all played in during the summer months.
It looked like a mud pit, so murky and brown that you couldn’t see the bottom.
One winter, long after I’d outgrown summer afternoons swimming in the water, I passed by when I was training for my Duke of Edinburgh Gold.
At first, I hadn’t recognized the place.
The surface of the water was like a mirror, reflecting the trees and hedges on the bank.
I stopped and looked more closely to find that the water was crystal clear—I could see right to the bottom.
The bed was covered in smooth stone pebbles punctured by bits of weed and bigger rocks.
It was an entirely different world that I’d never noticed beneath my feet.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t been looking before—it was just a different time of year, which showed me something new.
I took a deep breath as I stared into Penelope’s eyes. The water was crystal clear.
It was as if I’d never seen my wife until now.
I’d never understood her drive or ambitions or what she wanted in life.
When we were married, she just seemed to be excited by what I wanted—a life with her.
A family with her. And despite her explanations, I hadn’t really understood why she’d left. But now I saw clearly.
Penelope was desperately searching for something.
She hadn’t found it in writing. And she hadn’t found it in me. Or Bethany, or our life together. And that wasn’t going to change the second time around. She needed to figure out her place in the world.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I replied.
Terror slid across her face, but I continued as she started to protest.
“I’m not saying you can’t be Bethany’s mother, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough for you, Penelope. And you haven’t been my wife for a very long time, despite what the law says. There’s a lot of water under the bridge.”
“But I’m still the same woman you married and you’re still the man I married. We can try. I’m sorry I left and I’ll work to regain your trust—”
“Lack of trust isn’t the reason we’re not going to work out,” I said, my mind completely clear. “We’re not compatible. I want someone who wants me. Not the idea of me. Not a husband. Not the father of her child. But me: Gabriel Chase. I’m not looking for someone who needs me to complete them.”
I’d told Autumn I’d try with Penelope and I had.
I could genuinely say that I’d spent time with her, wanting to understand why things hadn’t worked between us.
I’d looked carefully at that idealized image of family that I’d longed for.
But I’d realized what I wanted wasn’t simply the opposite of the life I’d had as a child.
My dream had crystalized—had been for a while now but most especially in the past month.
I wasn’t the same man I had been when I’d conjured up that ideal. I was a father now. I was older. I didn’t want some fantasy. I wanted to be happy.
“I’m not asking you to leave our lives.” I continued. “I’m not saying you can’t be a mother to Bethany. But we can’t be married anymore. And I think one day, you’ll see that too. I don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.”
“But I loved our life together.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her, genuinely curious. “Some of it worked, Penelope. But if it wasn’t enough for you to stay then, is it enough now?”
Minutes ticked by as she gazed out the window.
“I want it to be,” she said finally.
I reached across the table for her hand. “I know. But I’m not sure wishing something is enough makes it enough. If that was the case, you would never have left.”
“I did love you.” Her eyes pleaded with me to believe her.
Love seemed like such a meaningless word when it came to our marriage.
I wasn’t sure it had been about love for either of us.
“I thought you were my forever but looking back . . . I should have known. Looking back, you were always searching for something. And you didn’t find it in me. Or in Bethany.”
A churning in my gut stirred memories of that cupboard where I used to hide.
The shouting. The crying. I knew it then.
I understood all those years ago that my father should have left.
My mother should have kicked him out. We weren’t enough for him.
I didn’t think Penelope had cheated on me.
Maybe she had—it didn’t matter. I was breaking this cycle.
I wasn’t going to take her back when I knew nothing was solved and so nothing would change.
Maybe she’d stay, but if she did, she wouldn’t be happy.
We weren’t enough. She had to figure out what she needed to make herself whole.
“I think I’m broken,” she said. “You are the best of men. And Bethany’s adorable. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Maybe it was me. Penelope had left and now Autumn was finding her fulfilment in Europe.
I knew Autumn had left because she thought it was best for me.
But she was young. Perhaps down the road, she’d realize I wouldn’t be enough for her either.
Something told me that it wasn’t the same.
What Autumn and I had was deeper somehow than what Penelope and I had.
We hadn’t talked about a future together, but I saw it as clear as I saw the plate in front of me.
I knew we’d be together, knew it in my bones.
“I don’t think it’s you. And I don’t think it’s me.
You need to find you, rather than look for someone else to give you what you need. ”
“Please don’t take Bethany away from me,” she said, her voice full of panic. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I promise you, I’ll do nothing to hurt her again.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to take her away. But she needs stability. We’ll figure out how to put her first without putting you last. Let’s agree now, in this moment, that we’ll figure out something that works for all of us.”
“Like I said, you’re the best of men, Gabriel Chase.” She took in a juddering breath. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” For the first time since she’d walked out on us three years ago, I felt at peace.
Relieved. We weren’t going to enter some kind of hell-loop where she came and went and we were both dragged into misery.
Bethany wouldn’t have to hide in cupboards, and I wouldn’t waste my life wishing reality was something it wasn’t.
Penelope and I weren’t meant to be. That had nothing to do with my anger or resentment, or not giving her a second chance. And it had nothing to do with Autumn.